“What’s your name again?”
He asks me.
“Have we met before?”
He asks me.
Yes we’ve met.
I remember the first time I saw you up close.
I was too scared to look into your eyes so I just looked at your hands.
I could’ve looked at them all day.
They were beautiful.
Not in a soft and polished kinda way,
but a strong and rough way.
It’s like they told stories of your manhood and all I wanted to do was put them up to my face and listen to what they had to say.
But you ask me…
“What’s your name?”
I guess you were all business.
Filming for your job and I was just a prop.
A nameless
plain
unimportant
prop.
You had to edit over an hour of footage with me in the background.
Twirling the ribbon in my Bible scared that if I looked up I would just stare at you.
You had to type my name.
First and last.
But you ask me…
“What’s your name?”
I thought of us before even laying eyes on you.
I remember the first time I saw your face.
We’ve only been going to church together for three months now.
I’ve only been staring at you every Sunday for three months now.
But you ask me…
“What’s your name?”
Your profile popped up on my Facebook and I thought it was fate.
I wasn’t looking for your profile.
I didn’t even know your name yet.
I lost sleep because of you.
It wouldn’t surprise me if I said your name in my sleep.
I checked your socials like an old man checks the morning paper.
But you ask me…
“What’s your name?”
Don’t worry about my name,
if you don’t know it now you will never learn it.
If you wanted to remember my name you would have.
So don’t waste my time with asking me now.
“WHAT’S YOUR NAME?”
My name is worthless
unlovable
invisible.
But I don’t say any of this out loud.
I tell you my name while I feel my heart tighten.
My name is…
But once I tell you my name you repeat it like it’s a question.
It’s like a song I want to play on repeat until I get sick of it.
I want to hear you say my name over and over and over again.
But you won’t.
You have another girl’s name to say.
While you forget mine,
I remember yours like a bad song I wish I never heard.
A song that’s so bad it’s good.
What’s my name…
Maybe my name isn’t worth remembering.
