and all the black smoke blazing sacred nothings into air . .
I think about this day three years ago and it makes me cringe. It makes me cringe every time I think about it, and I remember how I was walking across campus, sunny day, beautiful blue skies, and how i heard a girl say something about a plane flying into the World Trade Center into her cell phone, and I got a visual of a small biplane crashing into the corner of one of those immovable buildings and taking out an office or two, and I laughed to myself, and thought, "She must be a drama student."
Even in class half an hour later, when almost every single cell phone was going off, and we were getting more and more restless, I didn't catch on. And when a girl stood up, and interrupted our slightly loopy nursing instructor, and announced what had happened, and we all dispersed, I running into the student union building just in time to see the last tower collapse on live television . . even THEN it didn't quite seep in.
And I called my mother, and got through the first time (oh hallowed miracle in Baltimore at that hour) and she told me it was true, and that it had been a PASSENGER plane, well that was when it slammed into me, the disaster, and I began to cry and couldn't breathe.
Most days I don't think of it, except for the brief news bit, but this day will never be the same to me again; I can't hear the words September 11th and ever NOT think of black smoke over New York and the awful not knowing, and then the more awful knowing.
Even in class half an hour later, when almost every single cell phone was going off, and we were getting more and more restless, I didn't catch on. And when a girl stood up, and interrupted our slightly loopy nursing instructor, and announced what had happened, and we all dispersed, I running into the student union building just in time to see the last tower collapse on live television . . even THEN it didn't quite seep in.
And I called my mother, and got through the first time (oh hallowed miracle in Baltimore at that hour) and she told me it was true, and that it had been a PASSENGER plane, well that was when it slammed into me, the disaster, and I began to cry and couldn't breathe.
Most days I don't think of it, except for the brief news bit, but this day will never be the same to me again; I can't hear the words September 11th and ever NOT think of black smoke over New York and the awful not knowing, and then the more awful knowing.