The glare of morning off crystalline shells
Suits wove endlessly from lobby to desk.
Minute hand towers over 8:45
Pungent smells of black coffee,
Stale air perspiration absorbed by sterile tiles,
Downtown, Jersey, Brooklyn gleam
as the crescent copper sun continues
Lady Liberty smiles.
8:46
Before you knew the ground beneath you
shattered.
A blanket of black invaded the poorly ventilated
rooms.
Panic took over the buried primal instincts.
Another statistic, another number on the ledger
that will never balance.
About to open a folder piled upon the rest.
In a flash all shook with momentous force.
Screams echoed in fear of the unknown,
Chilling how quickly the room became dark,
The blue sky faded behind an unbreakable
wall
Unable to move pressed up against the cold
Glass
An attempt to escape the unforeseeable
Events
My head was pounding and breaths became
Forced
Break the window, just break the window
For God's’ sake we need air.
Ravenous orange had broken through the floor
And the four walls.
Upon contact the glass broke - air flooded in.
We hung out of the windows, gulps of air.
Make a decision, hope for pure intervention, a
Safety net.
1,2,3,jump…
Light as a feather when you leap from the 94th
Floor window.
Escaping the smothering black cloud from within.
Close your eyes, breathe, in and out.
What thoughts were going through your head?
Were you hoping for a miracle angel.
A tumbling image stuck on replay.
Your death captured in history.
You had to jump.
It was a very public way of dying.
Onlookers witnessed the whole ten-second journey.
Death was your only option: swallowed by
Painful singing flames or
A courageous end to your life.
Evil that day determined fire would seal your fate.
In a last attempt you fought back and cheated
Death’s cruelty.
Stuck at the window frame fixated on salvation.
There’s no other way, the heat is too hard to face.
Just step out, let go.
Fly through the clouds.
Hands clenched by my side my ears still ringing.
I breathe in a heavy breath, felt the air filling my lungs.
Sorrowed breaths.
Debris to chaos.
Ash to souls.
In midst of death it was serene.
Closed my eyes and let go.
The way i flew would’ve made my parents proud,
For that day the only thing that saved me was the
Camera that caught my body in suspense.
By a stranger in the crowd.