a full-faced moon, and i’m the sound of it rising, the cry that comes from my chest an acknowledgement of birth. i had to know it was going to hurt, so i tuck the ache into my name as the very first letter. / i’m put in the back of our minivan, an emptiness in my mouth. mom and dad fought at the basketball game. i wonder how he’ll get home, but i know that he always does. no one tells me how we’ll both chip away. in the loss grows a second letter. / 9pm looks through a laundromat when we forget to pay the bills, says that neon looks good on the brown of my skin, and i’m given a quarter for candy. the rough hum of a dozen machines drowns out the third letter. / my brother waits in the car with me, and the two of us aren’t wet. flash floods come too often for rain to keep my family from ice cream. the yellow haze of a dairy queen suffuses the fourth letter. / we do stupid things out of boredom, and, god, do we love each other for it. one of my brothers pedals his bike, earth opening up before him. i taste my own fear when he falls to the grass. our laughter outlines the fifth letter. / white walls and blue sheets have me thinking time has stopped. i wonder if i really made the call. handcuffs don’t hurt as much as you’d think, but my mother’s voice was frantic. i save the message she leaves on my phone as the (4.2)sixth letter. / green hair marks my sister as life in the midst of a petrified forest, wood on wood on wood. a poorly lit bar makes me tired. the man behind the gas station counter smiles at me while i talk, beer still in my eyes, sign outside flickering. the buzzing in my head drones on and fills the final letter. / my name is an introduction. here’s who i’ve been. here’s the start.
THE MEANING OF YOUR NAME // prompt 3 by @julykings