Wht’s Your NM?

“What’s your name?” ere’s a gi

You ask, and I gulp as the world around me crawls to a halt the same way it always does when I hear those damn three words while I go rooting through my right pocket for an answer to give you.

She came to the mossy tombstone of a great-grandfather I will never meet, stole his surname to turn it into a making o

I put it in my bag, hoping that he’ll be happy to have his last name back a

Under that, I 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, disrespecting 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. is is not a glass of white wine, no, this isn’t chardonnay. is is petite sirah, pinot noir, something

“What’s your name?” e ruby dress in the closet? It’s a gi for a friend!” “ e me in the closet?”

You ask as I realize there’s still something le 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 Of coming up with half-assed lies every time I was pressed about anything.

I couldn’t come up with a lie for that in the end. Instead, I’d always choke up, ush, unfortunately not of the royal variety, nd 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 rst place only to remember that I have no idea what I’m doing and that I still have so much to do about myself a er 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 conversavtion?”

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, ush skin you get when you say I think I like you, the color of love, of passion, of sin, of imperfection, the color of beauty in spite of any blemishes. I smile and reach into my right pocket, reaching past where I let all those other dead names lay to rest