Melancholia That I Kept Inside: Recollections of Surviving the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks as a 4 Year Old Boy
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“You’re not in this alone. Let me break this awkward silence…”
Blared loud into eardrums
Eardrums of an emotionally unhinged fourteen year old boy
He shivered in conjunction with the swelling of damp eyes.
Those brown eyes reflected
Ponderous thoughts
Like proliferating Vegetation
The nightmares were breathing
They ate his brain from the inside out
Oh!
How they wanted a taste of those eyes
And what those Eyes had seen
They were always chasing more than they could handle.
3AM.
Sweat.
3AM.
Pant.
3AM.
Introspect.
4AM.
Sleep.
How unfortunately familiar.
He feared the fleshy memories which his subconscious were forcing him to vividly re-experience.
For when he slept,
He became me
And when I slept,
The clandestine was revealed.
Abysmal Black:
Blood-curdling screams abounded
Bodies flew through sky
Crash
Hard
More screams
More pavement.
My sweaty hand squeezed mothers.
The empty and dry taste of anxiety began to stifle his breath,
As fear and black smoke poured into my lungs.
The feeling was heavy,
And the concrete chains laced around his ankles
Forced me to sink
Sink into pavement.
More Pavement.
I was inexperienced.
A pang in his chest was
Followed
By one in my gut.
He turned his head swiftly,
Stared at the smoking tower two blocks up.
Collapse.
More Pavement.
Panic,
More Pavement.
Chaos.
A race for survival.
I was too short,
His hand slipped,
And I was separated from my mother,
"Mommy!" I cried.
An echo in the distance
And smoke encroached the area behind
Helplessness triggered fear
Fear pulled the trigger of my reality.
It happened in one instant.
So, now you know.
I don’t have to hide from what haunts me anymore.