Where is my mind?

I didn't write last year.

I couldn't write for a long time.

I'm tired of all the flags, I'm tired of all the people who don't actually care, I'm tired of all the media coverage, I'm tired of running into tasteless reminders everywhere I turn.

The mall was playing patriotic music all day long -- thank God I had today off, because I couldn't have dealt. I was stuck at work today last year, and I couldn't go anywhere, and none of us could go anywhere, and I almost leapt over the bar and beat the shit out of a customer who wouldn't shut up about how we should bomb the shit out of Afghanistan, and it was like the apocalypse because we could see the smoke on the horizon and people coming in and telling us what they'd heard was happening was the only way we could know anything. No radio, no television. And then cell service went down and we couldn't even call anyone to find out. About an hour after everything started happening we sent someone out to find a television, and they started going in shifts, and they stopped going when the first tower fell because none of us wanted to see anything else happen. And still people came in telling us things, and still everyone we saw wandered around glued to their cellphones trying to find out if something would work, if they could call /anyone/, dazed and frightened expressions on their faces...and still we couldn't leave the store. We were finally allowed to close at around three o'clock, and I went to pay a parking ticket and the court was closed, and I came back because I didn't want to go home, because I knew the television would be on. I helped close and we all went to give blood. And then we couldn't because there were too many people, so we all went back to Starbucks and made a shitload of coffee and hot chocolate and brought it all over to the blood center for the volunteers and employees and all the people waiting. Every time I've come back to give blood since, they remember me from then. We finally went back to give blood on the twelfth, and ended up staying to volunteer, too. But it wasn't enough, because none of it was enough, because what the hell could ever be enough? Especially thirty miles away in New Jersey where we could see the smoke but we could do shit-all? It was like the end of the world was sitting there an hour away, then. And it felt like that for a long, long time. Months later I went to the top of the Empire State Building again, and it was still smoking. The mess was still smoking. And my god, it hurts. It still hurts. It will always hurt.

Part of my mind is still stuck in that store on that day, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to leave. I don't know.

I've lit a Yahrzeit candle, even though it's the wrong day and I'm not Jewish.

Maybe something will work.

Maybe they'll stop pretending they give a shit about the fact the city's still bleeding and there are people who still hurt, and let the city and the people heal on their own time, and stop making money by flashing neverending images at us.

Maybe one day I'll be able to think about it all without hurting and getting livid and sick.