Challenging the people in my life to question how much they really know about me.
My name is student. But I’m still seen as the child with the two tight pigtails and bows in her hair. As the child who doesn’t know what she wants to do, though the current me maps out my future so nicely. Never to be taken seriously, even with my suit pressed precisely.
My name is anxiety. Don’t confuse with the word stress because stress is the not medical term to be obsessed with stress and everything else in between. I lie awake at two a.m. and reflect on the text I sent to my friend, or worry about the take-home test due in six months
My name is disabled. My ears from a young age deciding they don’t want to follow the normal curve. I stand on a border with one culture on each side, never allowed to cross over into either territory. I’m not deaf enough, I’m not hearing enough, I am just not enough
My name is questioning. I cannot hold the colorful flag high filled with pride. This is a puzzle I still work on, building up the border so I can figure out the details inside. I study each color, learn how one piece fits with the next, to give me this beautiful image filled with answers
My name is woman. I cover myself in metal armor to protect myself from the perverted thoughts of men. But it wasn’t strong enough when you asked me if I wanted to screw my mother’s sixty-year-old boyfriend. You, middle-aged, high school dropout, bald since sixteen, with a growing beer gut, coworker, asked me this. When really you wanted to know if I would fuck you. No. I didn’t ask you to penetrate my armor, to make me scared of going into work
My name is politically frustrated. With everything happening during the era of Trump, the hate, the death, the fear. With being told that I have to be only conservative or only liberal, that I’m an enemy when I’m an ally, that I’m wrong for not speaking up about an opinion I still attempt to discover, to find myself on this political spectrum everyone wants me on. With never getting time to stop for a moment and think, before I react and speak
My name is not my current age. Not the state of my mind or my body. Not the identity of my love or XX chromosomes. Not the separation caused by politics. My name is five foot nine and still growing, brown curly hair that just brushes my shoulders, blue glasses with green eyes so I can see for miles, food stained straight teeth, heart and arms filled with kindness spread wide, for people who don’t deserve it, for the people who need it the most, my name is Kimberly.
