September 1st, 2001.
I woke up to that same annoying alarm clock, 7:03 AM
Morning shower, morning coffee, morning breakfast –
I changed the calendar but I dropped the tack to hold it up.
September 2nd.
I’m thinking about October,
All the trees ablaze with orange and red, pumpkin pie in the season, cinnamon tingling in the air.
The new Spirit Halloween store opened up around the block. Superhero costumes are pretty cool.
September 3rd.
My mom takes me out to dinner because it’s Monday.
September 4th.
Routine
September 5th.
Routine
September 6th
In calculus, 11 is my favorite number.
September 7th.
Routine
September 8th.
Routine
September 9th.
My routine staccato.
Taxis responds after 3 calls,
My favorite professor gave me a hard time,
I wanna go home.
After the hustle of ants we call people,
loud street venders,
that creepy guy on the street corner,
NO, I do not want to try your new raspberry cheesecake Jack In The Box, I just wanna get my **** food and go home.
I arrive and melt into my sofa, falling asleep to the news.
September 10th.
No alarm clocks.
In the evening, my mom and I go out to dinner because today is Monday.
Red Lobster has the BEST seafood and while we’re eating,
she complains about the air conditioning in her new work place.
She works for some business in the twin towers.
September 11th, 2001
Instead of the alarm, sirens wake me.
I find the tack to hold up my calendar. – It’s Tuesday.
My feet, cold and lifeless, wander around the house until they trip over the scent of smoke.
Those sirens must’ve stopped nearby.
My mom is at work.
I want to get some air,
so I grab the keys off my splintered champagne desk,
****** them into ignition,
fingers wrapping around cruise control,
shifting into reverse,
the monotone GPS lady telling me to turn left.
The smoke is denser.
I follow her voice: turn right.
The smoke is solid.
Keep straight.
The smoke is suffocating.
In 3 hundred feet, turn left
The smoke is the sky –
Charlie Chapman gray.
My mom was at work.
Around me were firetrucks sparking with blinding flashes that screamed the word “emergency.”
My mom was at work.
The sight ahead was morbid. Unnerving. Disastrous.
It was like Halloween, except there were no superhero costumes, only firefighters and policemen.
My mom was at work.
The tower had holes punctured into their glass windows,
Smoke rising like leaves stemming out of the stump of skyscraper.
My mom was at work.
People like ants, fleeing, scattering, put on the mask of apocalyptic expression.
The throaty yells of “it was a plane” stuffed my eardrums
It was a plane, they said, it was a plane.
This was not routine.
My mom was at work.
The alarm woke me up.
I had my morning coffee.
It took all the synapses in my brain to deny what was right in front of me.
My senses detected telephone signals exploding with,
"I’m fine honey, don’t worry,”
Airlines confused and cramming.
I parked my car in overwhelming paralysis.
Above me, a screech of a whistle filled what was left of the air,
Followed by a boom that replicated my heart.
Frozen. Milliseconds frozen.
The plane was flying too low
WHAT HAPPENED?
There were people in those towers,
Everything was an epiphany --
Marriages, birthdays, fathers, sons, mothers, daughters,
Now cadaverous bodies antigravitating in rubble of boring office walls, family pictures.
Death in one swift move of terror.
My mom was at work.
We went to dinner yesterday.
My mom was at work.
The seafood tasted amazing.
My mom was at work.
She complained about the air conditioning.
My mom was at work.
She got a new job in the twin towers.
The twin towers are ablaze
The twin towers are spilling orange and red
They are sending ashes tingling through the air
This was not the October I asked for.
I longed for September 1st
I dropped the tack to hold up my calendar.
It’s Wednesday.
September 12th, 2001.
I did not sleep.
The news kept me awake, kept saying terrorist attack, terrorist attack, identified bodies, many mourning.
Because of their god, they lessened faith in mine.
This was the closest the public eye were to see a warzone-
Text messages cluttered with sympathy.
My routine changed for the rest of my life.
10 years later
Alarm clocks ringing, 7:03AM I stay in bed.
It’s Monday. I do not go out to dinner.
Instead, I drive 5 miles out to the cemetery.
People are still ants, pushing and shoving to where they need to go, they walk as if they had forgotten.
I no longer crave the red and orange of fall, cinnamon is foreign to my senses.
I hate the number 11 because it’s etched on your gravestone.
Your gravestone – gray and dense like the smoke
I wish they were not a constant reminder of the future I live in, but you don’t.
Today, there are no exclaiming yells of people or screeching whistles of planes.
Today there is only silence.
There is only silence.
