As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow

by Zoulfa Katouh

“We fight while we’re still here, Salama, because this is our country. This is the land of your father, and his father before him. Your history is embedded in this soil. No country in the world will love you as yours does.”

“Am I going to die?” he asks, and I see no fear. Do all six-year-olds know what death is? Or is it only children of war?

I may escape from Syria. My feet could touch European shores, the waves of the sea lapping against my shivering legs and the salt air coating my lips. I would be safer. But I won’t have survived.