Never Forget!

morning light fell ordinary

coffee in my hand

the hum of a city

that didn’t yet know

it would break

then a flicker on the screen

a tower in flames

and I froze

smoke rising like a living thing

twisting

curling

impossible to look away from

I could see the skyline change

a wound opening across the river

the air itself turning gray with grief

I called friends

I called strangers

I cried into the phone

as the towers shivered

collapsed

and the sky cracked open

pouring ash

silence

and screams

into every borough

sirens carried over bridges

echoing down streets

people gathered in stunned clusters

eyes fixed

as if staring long enough

might stitch the towers back together

I watched people run toward danger

hands clutching dust

hearts full of courage

some never came home

and of those who did

so many carried the towers inside them

in their lungs

in their blood

in the slow poison of dust and ash

the aftermath stretched on for years

funerals that arrived too late

illnesses that whispered of the rubble

bodies that broke quietly

long after the smoke had cleared

the cleanup claimed more lives

silent as the dust that settled over us

they are not always named

but they are counted in grief

firefighters

laborers

neighbors

souls

who inhaled sacrifice

and exhaled it

until there was nothing left

hours became shadows

shadows became years

and still every name

feels like a stone I carry

the weight of absence reshapes itself

but never disappears

and though I was not inside

I was close enough to breathe it in

to feel the city tremble beneath me

to cry for those lost that day

and for those who kept giving their lives

long after the flames had gone out