The teenager of me is awake &

slamming all the doors.

Science says this is what happens

around this time of life.

.

Says her 18 years are not even enough to be my half-life, and I’m

splitting my childhood from her

like atoms.

.

Science says of course she explodes.

.

At 2am she asks if I remember seeing The Titanic in theaters.

She was 13 and just born then.

Now she moves like a sinking ship,

gasps the air like all this new life

is filling her with heavy goodbye.

.

At 2 AM, she reaches through my throat

and wipes my tears.

We’re the same girl we were

in the theater that day, she says.

There’s room on that door for both of us,

she tries to tell me.

.

I want to tell her the story of

everything since,

but science says time travel is not possible.

Science says the hormones must quiet

what they must in an ecosystem

like me.

.

Instead, I hold her cold hands &

tell her I love her.

.

She looks around at this new world, this new stage, and isn’t certain.

I can tell she isn’t certain at all.

.

She makes me promise

I’ll survive.