A 9/11 Memory | Teen Ink

A 9/11 Memory

October 9, 2019
By AnnaMay02 SILVER, Louisville, Kentucky
AnnaMay02 SILVER, Louisville, Kentucky
6 articles 0 photos 0 comments

When I looked up the big doors I felt the memory return like a bullet to the brain.

That day swiped nearly everything out from under my feet and made me hate this place I call home.

One.

I counted in my head as my foot hit the first step and I recalled the suffocating smoke.

Two.

Second step and the feeling of panic shivered through my bones,

Three.

The loud noises and blood curdling screaming rang in my ears.

Four.

The raging fire singed my hairs and took my tears.

Five.

I ran as far and as fast as I could, stepping on various limbs, selfishly saving my own life.

Six.

I left them all behind the pain still cuts like a knife.

I was now to the hardest trail, I had to open the door and enter.

This building my best friends and coworkers last saw when I abandoned them.

The wave of emotions I felt was so grave, I crashed to the floor and wept.

 As a grown man I wept until the guilt and hurt eased in the slightest manor, enough of me to get back to my feet,

Ancient clutter that once occupied this space like me filled the dark grey walls.

The firemen’s boots that saved many and once took the same steps I just did were petrified in time by a clear box.

The pictures of lost loved ones burned in my eyes like the raging fire and horrid memory.

I looked at the smiles that replicated the ones I used to inflict on the same faces.

My friends, oh my friends, it should’ve been me.

Yet I am standing here looking at your smiles and you are not standing next to me.

Oh, the day that took your smirk and grins off the earth and mine as prisoner.

Oh, the day that took my everything.

September 11th, 2001, a memory deadlier than a bullet.



Similar Articles

JOIN THE DISCUSSION

This article has 0 comments.