Aloha Friday Motivation | Requiem for 9/11 | #262

Requiem is defined as a mass for the dead, a solemn chant, or a musical composition honoring the dead. In a way, each year on 9/11, we all hold a requiem, serving as a living reminder never to forget the events that unfolded, the lives lost, now, 23 years ago. The distance that grows each year, since the attacks in 2001, creates this chasm effect, evoking this feeling in me of standing over a large void, looking off into oblivion. Its so hard to explain. I was a junior in college, waking up in my dorm room that morning. I don’t remember much of the day. I am fairly certain I woke up after the first tower was hit and maybe saw the second tower get hit as I watched the news. My brother was going to school in lower Manhattan and so my concern was for his safety. My college roommate's father worked at the Pentagon and he had concerns for his safety. We were both fortunate that our loved ones survived. Others were not. I just know that, like many, when this time of year comes around, I am haunted by this sense of innocence shattered. ?

I do remember, a few weeks removed, writing about it in my creative writing class that semester, but never sharing it. Then months later, during a semester in Australia, I finally recited it aloud at a hostel in Byron Bay for the first time. I dig it up every year and thought I would share it here.

11 September

We sat on bar stools, scratching at the cracked leather and cheap foam

Watched the bubbles shuffle to the surface of our drinks

We bowed our heads, tipped our glasses, said a prayer

As we stared, eyes glued to the television thinking

Our hearts sinking like the image of those two towers

Minds showered with clouds of smoke, choked

Each moment stretched longer, incensed and evoked

A sense of sand sifting through my fingers, watch the hours pass

recalling those mighty sounds, as the towers crashed ?

like freight trains screaming passed, remains plastered on the mind

Tell me is it a sign of the times, can we roll back, try to rewind

Realize, be kind, stumble as we rise above the dust, we must

Not forget, though I am hard-pressed to remember

What the days were like before the 11th of September