I.
I read an article by a man whose sister was killed
when a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.
He visited the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
"Vulgarity with the noblest intentions," he called it.
I think this article
is the most important thing I've ever read.
Until this moment, no one has put into words
how I felt, all those years ago,
when you finally, finally got to sleep
and never woke up-- when your face was everywhere,
when strangers speculated, "Oh, I bet it was suicide;"
"**** yourself up like that, deserve to die young;"
"Shame. Addiction, that is--"
--and none of them knew you and
the vacancy in my heart was headline fodder
and I saw your face and heard your name every day
and no one stopped to realize
that their tributes might be killing the ones who loved you.
II.
Those men and women in the towers became posthumous media darlings,
their names used as war cries, whispered in museums, offered as prayers,
and as icons and martyrs they lost all humanity.
You became some sort of James Dean, the unlikely hero in a tragedy,
and they spun you a romantic, drug-laced casket to lie in
because it would sell the most magazines.
Death is nothing more than trinkets and dollars.
III.
At the museum, there are recording booths
disguised as therapy, collecting the stories
so they can be told in U.S. History classes to our grandchildren.
I never talked, not once, not once,
because I was afraid of being forced into one of my own.
What would I say?
IV.
His sister was turned to ash and so were you.
We have no place to stand and mourn.
He laughs at the rows of unidentified human remains;
maybe because there's nothing else to do.
I wonder if you have grown flowers.
V.
"Everyone should have a museum
dedicated to the worst day of their life," he says.
*******, I say.
I'm usually not so forthcoming about this. This may be deleted later.
The article, in case anyone's interested:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/stevekandell/the-worst-day-of-my-life-is-now-new-yorks-hottest-tourist-at