There was a man who did not always know his name.

Sometimes, it would be clear as the day and the time and the place,
Sometimes it would be like a forgotten memory
Leaving traces but just out of reach of his mind.

How reassuring it was in those moments
For someone to call him by a familiar sound,
And to know that at least one part of him was fuller than the moment before.

But when he was alone
Or around those who knew him best and did not feel the need to remind themselves of what he was called,
There was a terrifying absence within him, which he was too prideful to admit.
In those moments, the place, the time, the day were as much strangers to him as another universe.

Grasping at them was futile, and only served to remind him of how far he was from the person who had a name.
He would choose to ignore the truth that someone who was him existed, preferring to absorb a meaningless present than to grieve for a lost past.

Those suffering moments between names were a chill which sunk deep into his bones, and slowed his heart, so that even the space between beats, between moments, seemed unspeakably vast, each a lifetime, yet never endowing the wisdom that years give.

Then, all at once, the lifetimes would melt away in one warm burst
As something or someone reminded him of himself.
And for the most terrible moment, he would know all,
Both what is was like to be full,
And what it was like to be emptier than the most infinite void,
Realization and loss would envelop him
And he would understand what it was to not be.
This was the most hideous moment of his existence,
So much the worse for the knowing
Of what had been the lifetime before.

But this too would pass, blown away by the new, old name, and soon, it too would be forgotten.
Then, he was just him, unaware and unthreatened by the memory of nothing.

And that was happiness,
That was beauty,
That was truth.

For the man who did not always know his name,
To know it,
Was absolutely everything.