She should have known better when she lied & said her favorite band was Nirvana. She became an oceanographer, measuring his sea levels, buoyancy, PH readings. Background checked the oxygen his coral reef hands release (everyone wants a good provider, right?). She tried to seed a galaxy, spark her big bang theory (that black vastness peeping back from another’s eyes: you never really loved me). She could have been married with four kids, fighting Texas crickets right now, the ones that crawl up your pants legs, night & day, up your skirt with no regard for privacy. Time would have been a surround-sounded wound. She wonders about shelf-lives when she folds in & in & in on herself. She could have ended up as vast & hopeless as a shoreless ocean, became a politician against her will. It was what she thought she was supposed to want, legacy, a heart transplant surgery, a handprint in wet cement. It was safe. Anticlimactic as a mediocre grilled cheese. Later he will ask if that is a wedding ring on her finger. Nothing but a nuclear explosion would make her go back in time (okay, not even that).