What’s your name?
“What’s your name?”
You ask as I gulp and the world around me
crawls to a halt the same way it always does
when I hear those damn three words
and I go rooting through my right pocket
for an answer to give you.
I find a gift from my mother there.
She came to the tombstone of
a great-grandfather I’ve never met,
stole his surname to turn it into a first name,
making off with it to write on my birth certificate.
I put it in my bag, hoping that he’ll be happy
to have his last name back after all this time.
Under that, I find a note
with my last name,
with my father’s signature.
I’m about to give it, but instincts kick in,
and before I know it, I choke up.
We lock eyes as he sees me crumple it up,
disrespect the family name, throwing it away the way I did. My chest pounds against its prison cell, its ribcage, at this mirage, he’s fuming now, turning red now, whining at my behavior. This is not a glass of white wine, no, this isn’t chardonnay. This is petite sirah, pinot noir,
something fiery, something crimson, something-
“What’s your name?”
You ask as I realize there’s still something left in my right pocket. I try to be honest, try to push it out of my throat
but like Sisyphus’ boulder
it falls back down to hide in the bloody depths of Hades and, oh, how I hate how these moments keep happening.
Memories of every boulder I’ve let fall consume me now. Of asking my family to stop mentioning how handsome I look, only to think, we aren’t complimenting him enough!
Of coming up with half-assed lies
every time I was pressed about anything.
“Voice training? No, I just want to get into chorus!”
“The rosy eyeshadow in my hand? I’m helping my friends be gorgeous!” “The ruby dress in the closet? It’s a gift for a friend!”
“The me in the closet?”
I couldn’t come up with a lie for that in the end.
Instead, I’d always choke up,
cheeks becoming flush, unfortunately not of the royal variety, but the fruity kind you’d find in the produce aisle
while I became cherries, I became apples, I was becoming-
“What’s your name?”
You ask as I start to wonder why I’m worried in the first place only to remember pretty quickly and I remember that
I have no idea what I’m doing and that
I still have so much to do about myself after this and that I could easily change my mind tomorrow and that
I could easily regret this all today and that,
I should probably ask to change the topic of the conversation.
“Can we change the conversation?”
I ask as you happily oblige, thank god,
and you go on to ask something new.
“What’s your favorite color?”
You ask as I breathe a sigh of relief.
Finally, a question I can answer
since the answer is so close to my heart.
My favorite color is the color of my heart,
the color of freshly fallen leaves on the ground
the flush skin you get when you say I think I like you,
the color of love, of passion, of sin, of imperfection,
the color of every beauty in spite of all of their blemishes. I smile and reach into my right pocket,
reaching past where I let all those other dead names lay to rest to finally say,
“Scarlet.”