Manifesto of a Modern Woman

I did not set out to write about 9/11. In fact, I have been studiously avoiding it and all references. But still it comes out, even when trying to write about something else! So here are my thoughts, as usual, interspersed with other things, on the 10th anniversary of the event.

I have been experimenting with using strikethoughs to show choices that I have made in the text, so I am using that technique publicly for the first time.



I am made up feelings, not memories. I do not live in the
past if pressed
I can summon(s)
the memories, remember the moment the men
in suits covered in soot slow as statues in hardening cement
walked up the streets the
disappearance of a building the
long lines to use the anachronistic pay phone in the park
see and says strung together like tin cans
across states a continent but I prefer to let memories
fade in favor of feelings the tears that come forcefully on hearing
siren after siren after siren song the sun shining in my eyes
the darkness in my lungs the feeling of not taking abreath after breath.

I am made up of feelings that don't fade, of love anger courage.

I am a woman who is made of feelings once attached to memories that must fade, shed like an extra skin, an old layer, no so much to make me new but a skin shed no longer needed so that I can livebreathe.