I thought I had recovered from my mother's crash. Until the planes crashed into the Twin Towers.

I watched the planes fly into the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, from my futon in a tiny apartment in Seattle.
Moving there with no job, no friends and no plan had been the bravest thing I ever did. But watching smoke billow out of those buildings and cover the screaming city below with ash sucked all that bravery out and crippled me with fear for more than 10 years.
And it took me almost as long to realize why: That the terror of 9/11 had pushed me back to the day my mother died, snapping the cable on my life and sending me crashing to the floor all over again.
Only this time I fell past the floor into a new horror. Because while my mother's death had dissolved just my family and sense of security forever, the attack on 9/11 did that for the whole country. 

One family could recover from a loss. Cars crashed all the time.
But planes crashing into skyscrapers? How could anyone ever feel safe again?

 

Later I wrote this poem.