was pre-: Pre-Algebra for
premature terror.
No equation to
make it all add up: the planes.
The towers. The fear.
A plane in my house,
a plane in my school. Too much
mean faceless fire.
Twelve was far too young
for a terrorist attack.
(What is the right age?)
My teacher told me,
"You're too young to understand."
Premature outrage.
Why patronize me?
Explain terror, explain hate.
Why are we afraid?
That day, she was right.
I could not grasp the airplanes.
The towers. The fear.
Where do we stand now?
No one forgets where we stood,
but where do we stand?
Present tense, not past.
In this time capsule moment,
are we in ashes
or in waterfalls?
In these ten years, I've emerged
from the cave, blinking
out the pain of youth.
I am still too young, but now
I can understand
the planes. The towers.
The Pentagon. The green field.
The fires. The fear.
Where I stand now is
not where I stood before this.
But will I forget?
Will any of us
forget that one crystallized
moment of lost breath?
We strive to forget
ourselves, but never forget
the premature loss
of lives, of futures,
of innocence. We just hope
for the waterfalls
to wash away the
ashes of the burning in
our eyes and our hearts.
