deadname

you thought it’d be more in your face, but

it feels more peripheral -

your parents don’t yell for you across the house anymore,

your sister has stopped mangling it into nicknames that used to feel like needles under your skin,

you and your family have the kind of almost-ESP that people do when they’re close:

names don’t have to be said, you know exactly who’s talking to who.

so it is easy to forget

[sometimes it is easy to forget the names you have chosen for yourself,

real-life, online, in-between;

they slip between your fingers at times,

and you hover around

unnamed, uncalled]

until it isn’t so easy to forget.

you have to enter it when you’re filling out online forms to be paid,

the process frustrates you [for more than one reason] and you set it aside,

go back to your room and your eyes fall

on a library card,

buried under books and paper birds and Christmas-themed candy.

only the name on it is visible.

you wonder if you’re being taunted.