You will not be taught to say goodbye
When your crystal is in pieces
you will not know how to stop the burning in
your eyes from drilling into your eyelids,
you will not learn how to handle the heavy block of ice
that presses into your chest:
you will stand on the top stair by the landing
in sore need of paint, the smell of yesterday’s garbage
and you will look at him in disbelief
your nightgown will trail, like your shortened breath
between your knees and you will look down at your silk slippers
and decide to follow.
You will see him turn and look at you
and you will not know how to read his lips
because they are still closed and
you will run down and he will turn and wait
and you will look into his blue eyes,
For the first time
you will be as tall as he is
and you can even look down,
then you will hug him and inhale his clean Davidoff smell and you will wonder
will Cool Water ever smell the same again?
And you will want to kiss him and yet you won’t
Because you can’t bear the thought that this is the last time,
the last time,
the last time.
~ Reem Rashash-Shaaban
Reem Rashash-Shaaban has an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and is presently an instructor in the English Department at the American University of Beirut. She is half Lebanese, half Saudi Arabian and lives in Beirut with her husband and four children. She writes poetry and fiction.