story512.xml
Title
story512.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2002-05-06
911DA Story: Story
Originally drafted September 15, 2002
Edited/ submitted April 20, 2002
***I wrote these thoughts in my diary the week after the September 11 Terrorist?s attacks on America. September 11 was tragic for America but September 15 was tragic for me. I did not feel the effect of the attacks until my longtime boyfriend told me he wanted to join the service as a member of the army?s infantry. I wrote this at six that morning while he slept beside me. These were my thoughts as I peered out my high-rise apartment?s windows.***
?Without Song?
The birds do not sing to me, anymore
No, not at 6 am on the fifteenth floor
Today I think the sun is scared to play
I wonder if my Egyptian neighbor is next door
He knows I?ve seen his barren little hole
Only a guitar and bike grace his room
So, today I think my neighbor looks Arabic
The birds do not sing to me, anymore
Oh, but the trains sound like airplanes
Amidst the whistling Japanese made cars
High above on the fifteenth floor, I hear a war
My lover sleeps soundly here with me now
Perhaps he has birds singing I cannot hear
Across the river on a building higher than mine
The flag still flies where birds must be singing
But the birds do not sing to me anymore
Every unknown sound is a terrorist attack now. Every dark mans is suspect now for our so-called enlightened society. I am wrongfully cynical and angry at this world. I hate the bumper stickers citizens suddenly decide to slap on their cars. I hate those stickers as even more when a foreign car with an American sticker cuts me off on the highway. I feel the patriotism as he gives me the finger for being in his blind spot. In the blind spot he choice not to notice before he moved. I hate him and all of them for not realizing sooner how great a nation this is. Everyone was so cynical and antigovernment before, but suddenly we all want to give up our privacy and replace it with racism. How long will this pseudo patriotism last this time? How long before our pride fades and we again become the fat, stupid, television raised families the rest of the world claims we are?
They, these politicians, clamber for war. With who shall we war I wonder. Perhaps, when Oklahoma fell we should have nuked them then- but that would have been in bad form. We are still the city on the hill, a role model society for the world- until we are threatened. Then we trash our beliefs of privacy and censorship.
So many, too many, are still missing in the ruble-days after- I know not how many. I?m not making light, not at all, oh yes its affected me too. AT&T dispatch was closed on my appointed phone hook up day. I am without a phone another week.
He too, the one I call my lover, wants to join these politician?s and enter this little war. I do not oppose his decision- none could be nobler right now. But what about me?
Spoiled little white girl- high on the fifteenth floor. If he goes over seas, what will I do, where will I go? I go on with my life, waiting, praying, and receiving letters when he chooses to write? What of the war?s end, when he finally returns. How could I let time stand still and preserve our love? How did my mother and her mother wait for their husbands? How can these boys, called men, gamble with their lives? I am just a poor little rich girl with a patriotic lover. He is too good sometimes to be my own.
Am I apathetic for not wanting him to fight for our American life? Aren?t our mass consumerism and postmodern fragmentation and alienation, worth his life? I am too cynical and angry with him and these men who decide our nation?s fate.
Should I too join in and advocate for destroying an entire nation half way across the world because a few members went kamikaze and devastated my entire life? What innocent babies will die? And which journalists will leave their loved ones to take the Pulitzer pictures that will gain American support for this war in the states? My friends, death is forever, no matter what your color or nationality.
I am proud to be an American and lucky to be a women. I?m much to fragile to fight and to important to the reproduction of American men to die in their wars. I?ll never worry about the draft. Oh, I?m proud to be an America and luckier yet to be born of the weaker sex.
I?ll keep going no matter what, war or not, its not my argument. It?s only my country, not my life at stake. I have opinions, too, you know. And when asked about all this, I?ll gladly say what I?ve written here. As for now I succeed, as for now.
***I never told my boyfriend I did not want him to leave. He later decided the army is not a choice to make on impulse. We are still together and in love. But as I read the newspaper?s headlines everyday, I realize, my birds have not yet returned to sing.***
Edited/ submitted April 20, 2002
***I wrote these thoughts in my diary the week after the September 11 Terrorist?s attacks on America. September 11 was tragic for America but September 15 was tragic for me. I did not feel the effect of the attacks until my longtime boyfriend told me he wanted to join the service as a member of the army?s infantry. I wrote this at six that morning while he slept beside me. These were my thoughts as I peered out my high-rise apartment?s windows.***
?Without Song?
The birds do not sing to me, anymore
No, not at 6 am on the fifteenth floor
Today I think the sun is scared to play
I wonder if my Egyptian neighbor is next door
He knows I?ve seen his barren little hole
Only a guitar and bike grace his room
So, today I think my neighbor looks Arabic
The birds do not sing to me, anymore
Oh, but the trains sound like airplanes
Amidst the whistling Japanese made cars
High above on the fifteenth floor, I hear a war
My lover sleeps soundly here with me now
Perhaps he has birds singing I cannot hear
Across the river on a building higher than mine
The flag still flies where birds must be singing
But the birds do not sing to me anymore
Every unknown sound is a terrorist attack now. Every dark mans is suspect now for our so-called enlightened society. I am wrongfully cynical and angry at this world. I hate the bumper stickers citizens suddenly decide to slap on their cars. I hate those stickers as even more when a foreign car with an American sticker cuts me off on the highway. I feel the patriotism as he gives me the finger for being in his blind spot. In the blind spot he choice not to notice before he moved. I hate him and all of them for not realizing sooner how great a nation this is. Everyone was so cynical and antigovernment before, but suddenly we all want to give up our privacy and replace it with racism. How long will this pseudo patriotism last this time? How long before our pride fades and we again become the fat, stupid, television raised families the rest of the world claims we are?
They, these politicians, clamber for war. With who shall we war I wonder. Perhaps, when Oklahoma fell we should have nuked them then- but that would have been in bad form. We are still the city on the hill, a role model society for the world- until we are threatened. Then we trash our beliefs of privacy and censorship.
So many, too many, are still missing in the ruble-days after- I know not how many. I?m not making light, not at all, oh yes its affected me too. AT&T dispatch was closed on my appointed phone hook up day. I am without a phone another week.
He too, the one I call my lover, wants to join these politician?s and enter this little war. I do not oppose his decision- none could be nobler right now. But what about me?
Spoiled little white girl- high on the fifteenth floor. If he goes over seas, what will I do, where will I go? I go on with my life, waiting, praying, and receiving letters when he chooses to write? What of the war?s end, when he finally returns. How could I let time stand still and preserve our love? How did my mother and her mother wait for their husbands? How can these boys, called men, gamble with their lives? I am just a poor little rich girl with a patriotic lover. He is too good sometimes to be my own.
Am I apathetic for not wanting him to fight for our American life? Aren?t our mass consumerism and postmodern fragmentation and alienation, worth his life? I am too cynical and angry with him and these men who decide our nation?s fate.
Should I too join in and advocate for destroying an entire nation half way across the world because a few members went kamikaze and devastated my entire life? What innocent babies will die? And which journalists will leave their loved ones to take the Pulitzer pictures that will gain American support for this war in the states? My friends, death is forever, no matter what your color or nationality.
I am proud to be an American and lucky to be a women. I?m much to fragile to fight and to important to the reproduction of American men to die in their wars. I?ll never worry about the draft. Oh, I?m proud to be an America and luckier yet to be born of the weaker sex.
I?ll keep going no matter what, war or not, its not my argument. It?s only my country, not my life at stake. I have opinions, too, you know. And when asked about all this, I?ll gladly say what I?ve written here. As for now I succeed, as for now.
***I never told my boyfriend I did not want him to leave. He later decided the army is not a choice to make on impulse. We are still together and in love. But as I read the newspaper?s headlines everyday, I realize, my birds have not yet returned to sing.***
Collection
Citation
“story512.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 25, 2025, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/7630.