Though I am not great
I have become a name*
The problems I’ve faced
The tasks I’ve completed
Have made me this name

Fidgeting my leg against a familiar school desk, the dreadful anticipation always washes over me while listening to roll call on the first day of school.

Names. Titles given to us at birth by someone with no idea of who we are or what we'll become, they are iron-clad chains bound to our lifetimes by those who want us to be something great. We do not all fit our names and we do not all fit in those boxes; a name is always just a name.  

Slut.
A word so keen and so sharp,
Thrown at me but never to me
To be muttered under the breaths of the boys who I’ve denied
And whispered from the girls with whom I have never exchanged a word.
It drips from the lips of people who do not know me,

Madeline.
The first name I was ever given
A symbol of my mother’s overbearing need to go her way or no way
Her way had no meaning
It was simply a name she thought was pretty
And pretty was more important than memorializing my dad’s time in the Army