“9/11” by Adjua Gargi Nzinga Greaves, Bedford-Stuyvesant

topic: 9/11 medium: TEXT

as submitted for the “9/11” Open Call

I was in college ten years ago and looking back, what stands out is how inevitable it all feels. A heartbroken “well, of course” sits beside me weeping as I recall watching the second plane hit—the weight of shame and guilt silenced by fear and grief as it became clear this was no tragic accident.

We were hated; we were to be destroyed.

The fear that calcified in those first hours has not left me since, but it is not the fear I see reflected around me. It is not a finger-pointing patriotic fear. It is not angry at all, but rather grief-stricken and mostly silent.

Unsettling as that morning was, more chilling was my anticipation of our retaliation and my clear sense of being immersed in a world of unsustainable relationships between angry, powerful humans.

Realizing how little I trusted my government’s thinking was perhaps the most lasting grief.