Stop Rewind Pause There This is it The moment you realize that you will never be this close to her again It is finals and you have not finished part of your exam But you leave it that way because she is in the seat in front of you again and there are only ten minutes left of this time She lays her head on her hand and rests her eyes You look at her for a long time This time is no longer valuable because of your exam You stare at her short curls, growing out the haircut she had when she was yours Was she ever really yours? Rewind Stop Play You never kissed but you almost did Twice And you always liked her before she grew her hair out and before everyone else realized how gorgeous she was But you always knew. Didn’t you? After the two almost kisses she pushed you out of her life And she got new friends who she never almost kisses But you still think about her And you don’t catch her looking at you across the hallway lately You hear that she is transferring to some fancy school next year from someone that isn’t her And you are so sad There’s no good reason for you to be sad You don’t talk anymore And the only time you see her is the one class period you have together And you talk to her before class once or twice She’s reading the picture of Dorian gray And then Frankenstein And you talk like acquaintances When you were once an inseparable pair Fast forward Stop Play You realize now that you have not thought about saying goodbye Your not prepared The proctor announces that there are only five minutes left in the exam but your eyes are glued to her She checks over her answers and chews on the end of her BIC ballpoint pen You notice that she’s wearing the ring you bought her back when you and her were an us on her left ******* and you picture it on the one right next to it You imagine tapping her on the shoulder and pulling her in for a kiss, and kissing her in front of your class and the world and the baby Jesus statue in the front of the room But you don’t Neither of you are brave people This cannot be the end of this But it is. So you watch her scan over her answers and faintly you hear the bell ring to signal the end of the exam As you get up to leave, feeling like your getting your teeth pulled on laughing gas She taps you on the shoulder, And asks you how you did on the exam What, you say, because is this what you’re really going to ask me? The exam, she says, I think I did pretty ****** This is her best subject, this makes no sense She looks you in the eye But you, you did alright Her new friends walk up then, whisking her off to someplace without you But she looks back for once And you know now that she needed an ending too.