sometimes you are fifteen and it is that deep.

teenage girl, you are everything and you are right. you are Rome, you went to war for me, carrying a kingdom in your ribs before you knew kingdoms could fall and leave a mess between your legs, a bloody trail from the castle to your knees on the chapel’s tile, holding the throne like a pocket cross as you purged your sins and grandma’s casserole.

you watched the world grow from something that fit in the palm of your hand, the way the gladiator knew the world only as what confined him. and maybe that was mercy, to believe the walls were built to protect you instead of keep you in. 

teenage girl, you were a city before you were a citizen. before you knew borders were things people drew to decide who belonged, handing you maps to pretend that even the ineffable has to fit upon a coordinate plane. here is where girls become women, where daughters become disappointments, where your body becomes a public monument that everyone thinks they have the right to enter. but you are not Constantine; a triumphal arch will not prove you.

you inherited a Rome you did not build: grandma’s jewelry, your mother’s warning, your father’s wandering eye, every story of every woman who came before you carved into the stone. you thought growing up meant building your own kingdom, but maybe it meant learning which ruins were never yours to repair. and you thought the knowledge of ancient civilizations meant learning from their mistakes, but we only learned how to preserve the ruins. empires do not fall because they forget how to build. they fall because they forget who was carrying the stones. 

and i am sorry i called you dramatic. i am sorry i laughed at your naivete. i am sorry i laughed when you thought the world was ending. you were right. in this world, every version of yourself has to fall before the next one learns how to stand. every year the fortress will let in more light until you realize what held you was what you were learning to climb. but Rome was never the arena, it was always the girl who carried the stones.