I don’t remember what I wore. I can no longer see the faces, but the sea of people rolls on. I was 18 and my world was just broadening, my vision only just expanding. The world was just opening up to me when I first saw you. It was a cold April, colder than I had ever experienced, despite my coat and hat and scarf that were sufficient in California, here I felt true coldness for the first time. The wonder of your majesty and the tower of your strength escape me now, for now the sea of people drown you out and your face is more a ghost than a memory. I waited in line for hours, for you were my gateway to the city. My first stop on the maiden voyage of my visit. The faces of the many fill my thoughts as we squeezed into the elevator and ride up to the very top, your viewing deck high above the others where I could see far and wide a world I never knew was there. I stroll your corners and wonder at all that I see, how I experience the world will forever after change. My heart skips a beat when I realize just how high we
are and how I fear the fall. The elevator descends and we go on, the Central Library, the subway, Broadway, St Patrick’s Cathedral, the shore, Central Park. We see all of the City, and I walk her streets looking up.
I never will forget you but I don’t remember your face, I never will forget the feeling when I heard the news, your majesty was breaking down and your strength was being attacked. I cried and froze in a memory that day, watching as you came tumbling down.
The cold December I was prepared for this time penetrates my soul with the bitterness of loss, the sorrow I feel when I walked past you again, running my hand along the chain link fence where you once proudly stood still gives me chills. I can remember the sea of faces now frozen still in photos taped to the fence with the flowers and the ribbons and the lost feeling of youth as I walked past your grave. I couldn’t bare to go in and see the destruction closer, I could feel it in the air. I don’t remember what I wore but I remember standing there.
(This Prompt seems fitting as today is the 13 year anniversary of 9/11/01- and I am recalling the memory mixed with the feeling I now have of my two bookend visits of the WTC the first visit in 4/2001 and the second in 12/2001)