my old name
when i was a teenager, at some point my name started to feel... weird.
i don't know when or how weird it was but hearing it felt different. on the internet, i would always not use my real name not only for protection but i also discovered i wasn't enjoying using it. it didn't felt much like me; almost like they were calling someone else. i started to hate and dislike it. saying my name felt heavy on my tongue.
my name is compound. i liked that. i liked knowing i had something specific that needed a name for.
i barely said my first name and people only knew if they asked for my full name or found out somehow. i liked knowing it was a secret thing that people would react surprised to find out, honestly. beyond that, i didn't liked it so much.
my name on the interned was usually an animal or something related to it. i liked it, it was fun. at some point i started to think about changing my name, or at least what could i call myself if it was possible. ironically or not, i would prefer boys name. i thought they were prettier, better sounded, cooler. i would frequently think myself as "what would i be if i were a boy?" and name were one of them.
i even had a quick list of names in my head (Oliver, Alex/Alexandre, and stopping to think, Rafael) but I couldn't share it with other people or they would find it weird and I couldn't try to be a boy on the internet or else I would be lying and i hated lying.
meanwhile, on real life, my name was feeling eerie. eerie and uncanny. back then, i couldn't point exactly why but now i can.
that name feels like a graveyard, something forgotten in the misty dusk, something that no one really knows.
that name is dead, is buried undergrownd and the body - rather its spirit - wanders around the cemetery, not exactly knowing where to go or what to do, since no one wants to listen to that sweet-but-confusing person with feelings no one comprehends. no one sees the person that i am. no one cares or hears for it's screams and fears.
it's a name that tastes like ashes on the mouth of those who speaks of it and a freezing, howling wind for those who hear; almost like you're lost in a forest and a ghost creeps right behind you, striking fear in your spine but you can't see it.
on the other side, it seems like a delicious cookie for those who doesn't know, those who doesn't care, to those who only wants me to be what i'm supposed to, to follow the rules i don't enjoy, to those who doesn't want to see me.
"it's better and it's the only name i know for you"
you do not know me and you refuse to know by saying that name. and honestly, do as you want with it. you keep insisting i'm that dead girl that you swear it's full of live then don't even try to know me. say that old name, see me as that thing. i don't want you to see me for who i am nor i'm gonna beg of you to do it.
you won't be disrespecting me, you will rather keep a fantasy of myself in your head. and i like that, i like that my existence is only for those who wish to understand me and care for me. actually care for me and listen to me and meet me in the pure and raw form that i am.
i am not that person i was. i was a shell of a person trying to fill myself with what others most love as an attempt to understand who i am. that person no long exists anymore - if it ever did - and if you cannot understand that, you will never know me.
i don't know how to end this, but i just know that i feel like i can finally be myself in the way i wanted to be and meet new people that wants me in the true way i am, not a weird, distorted person of your mind like in the way a prism distorts light and you pick the color you wish to see, no.
now, people either have me for who i am, or do not have me at all.