No.172: Do We Remember?

I wanna join the wave and say 
we remember, 
but I don’t. 
For all I know,
I was at the back of a 1st-grade class,
tuned out, uninterested, wandering 
in my six-year-old head,
unaware of the events 
that would shape my world, 
my studies, my career, my day — 
at work I see survivors turn victim 
after almost two decades,
I still hear of their deaths,
I still carry my badge in spaces that still speak 
like the sting is still there,
I watch a black woman get stripped down 
as TSA scours through her hair,
the sound of war still rings clear.

A whole generation raised without a sense of fear,
and yet, the marks still tear through the halls of Congress 
like a memento from Hell.
I wish those families well.
Those whose wounds have been forgotten,
drowned by the sound of placid comments like 
we remember.

Do you?
Because I don’t. 
I can only imagine the damage whispered by the smoke. 
I was raised in New York,
but even I can’t fathom what those planes took.
I wasn’t cursed with that particular memory. 
But if I died 
from serving on 9/11,
I would hope 
that you truly remembered me.