You know, I've been thinking a lot.
What if a name is just a name,
and maybe I'm just totally insane.
You say I'm dramatic,
but really I just don't feel like me.
I'm stuck in this body,
the one that was given,
but I can't help that you just don't want to see.
I hate that Maddie is gonna see me as her aunt,
but what happens when she grows up and her brain gets caught?
How do you teach her that her aunt is now her uncle?
How do i teach her that ive always been him, but wasnt free?
How do i show her how to love me for me?
And most of all, how do i show her that even if she doesn't agree,
she should never leave?
"If I got upset over out last name..",
but what you don't understand is it's not the same.
You don't cry and wanna rip your hair out,
you don't break down when they say it's not allowed,
and you definitely don't feel the need for pain to make it go away.
Until you feel these things, never compare us.
Cause you comparing us last name vs first,
that just solidifies my trauma,
and it definitely confirms the worst.
I need piercings so I don't cut,
but you don't need anything to not feel like some nut.
You don't need therapy to talk it out,
or people's validations to talk you down.
You don't hate yourself while looking in the mirror.
And you dont feel his hands all over you while trying to see who you are clearer.
You didn't start to come out to be queerer,
to hide who you used to be after you stopped being cheerer.
My name isn't changed cause i'm crazy,
but because all yall did to me made my years hazy.
I wasn't born with this disease,
but yall released it on me.
I hate you for comparing,
for even daring,
and for not caring.
You have mom worrying about me,
when really she just needs to breathe.
Now it's such a bad thing that I have a friend,
but only cause I dont know them enough to mend,
or really at all cause we're not in person in the end.
This is your fault.
For hurting me again.
For making me feel like im back to 10.
But then again you shouldn't be to blame,
Cause afterall, isn't it just a name?
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Good afternoon to you!
I find this such a good and poignant question. And in general I am so on board with what you write and feel here.Still I am not sure what you mean by “her brain gets caught”? Usually that implies something negative. I don’t think it tracks as well with the rest of the poem. Because you say here, only if her brain gets caught she will start to question why she suddenly has an uncle?
Wait… what do you mean by “even if she doesn’t agree” agree with what? Respecting the pronouns? You are… losing me a bit.
I do think MyrtleJinn said it best: this entire poem feels raw and unfiltered, and that is a good thing!
I do have a question: are these the actual names of the ppl in your life? If yes, I strongly advise you to change them, the internet can be a bad bad place.
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Thank you for this review. I did explain a bit of my perspective in responding to vulpesvelox. Thank you for this review.
Hello! This is MrytleJinn,
I read this and I just had to sit down and think. This felt all too real for me. At first some things in the poem didn't quite make sense and then everything just clicked about an hour later.
The things you are bringing to light in this poem are things that people will write books and poems and movies about but they are highly romanticized. How you are writing this is what it's like.
Authors romanticize these things and try to make sure that they don't hit as hard. But sometimes making something raw and unfiltered is what you want.
This is really good and I understand the struggle with being deadnamed. I just started summer rehearsals for marching band and I'm transitioning. My dead name is in the system and that's how I'm known. I can't introduce myself with my new name without causing a hell of a lot of confusion. I've tried. It's been really hard knowing that I have to introduce myself with my dead name until people know me enough that it will make sense to switch to my new name.
Honestly this poem is super good and I really really loved it.
Thank you so much for this. When I write, I write from the heart and it normally just flows out of me. I wasn't originally planning on posting this, but I'm glad I did. I'm so glad you liked it. I'm sorry that you have to use your deadname. I felt the same way for about a year, even though I tried to use my preferred name anyway, and it's hard. After I started going by Ash/Ashtyn it made it a lot easier to tell people since I knew thats who I was. I've been going by Ash for 5 years now, and im so glad thats what I chose as to represent me as a person, because thats who I am. Everyone knows who I am as Ash, and I go to all my teachers before school starts so they know absolutely not to call me my deadname. I've almost never had trouble with this. I hope it gets better for you. Thank you again. Im glad you liked it.
Hello!
The final line is a little awkward because "I can't help that you don't want to see" makes it sound as though the narrator might otherwise be responsible for the other person's refusal. I think something more direct would be stronger since they are refusing to see him, regardless of how clearly he explains himself.
I don't understand what "her brain gets caught" means here. Does it mean she becomes confused, gets trapped between what different adults tell her or starts questioning what she was originally taught? The idea is important, but the wording needs to be clearer since I stumbled a bit here.
I really like bringing Natalie into the poem, though. It takes the issue beyond the narrator's current pain and shows that he's frightened of being misrepresented to someone he loves. I like how realistic that feels!
What is the worst thing being confirmed, that the family doesn't believe him, that they think he is being dramatic or that they will never accept him?
The first line is extremely direct in an effective way. It tells me the piercings aren't only aesthetic or rebellious but are being used as a substitute for another kind of pain, which is certainly something other people can relate to. I like how that broadens the poem from being about gender to being about mental health, as well.
I think "feel like a nut" weakens it, though. It sounds less serious beside a disclosure about self-harm and feels chosen mainly to create the rhyme.
This feels very rooted in the real argument, but an outside reader doesn't know what Aunt Rachel has been told, what she's worried about or why the narrator thinks she should calm down. You could either give another line of context or remove the name and focus on the larger feeling of family members discussing the narrator as if he is a problem to manage. I think it's easy to grasp the general concept behind that.
***
The emotion here is very real! I understand where you're coming from and I have had my own struggles with gender, so this was a challenging read for me, though it's effective at tackling this subject. I think anyone reading would feel how much care you put into this!
At the moment, though, it moves through gender identity, fear of losing Natalie, the last-name comparison, self-harm, therapy, sexual trauma, family gossip and an online friendship without giving all of those ideas enough space. They are likely connected in your mind, but any reader needs help following that connection. I know that I had to reread a few lines. Stanza breaks could separate the poem into the name, Natalie, the comparison, the narrator's private pain and the family's current behaviour before returning to the name at the end.
I also think you're sometimes forcing words or sentence structures to rhyme. Rhyme is nice! You can still use rhyme, but I wouldn't make every point depend on one. I would focus the next draft less on making each pair of lines rhyme and more on making each thought clear, since I think this is heading in a very good direction.
Thanks for sharing this poem! Cheers!
Lip
Thank you for telling me how you see it and for this review. I wish I could've added some context for different lines because some like "like a nut" do have context on why they are worded like that. My mom, "Aunt Rachel" is what I call her, described mental hospitals as "nut houses" and I have been in quite a few. That line specifically was referring to that. I agree that the first part you put did feel off, I was just trying to figure out how to add something like that. I also was not originally planning on sharing this. The part about confirming the worst has context from my trauma, but again, I was not planning on sharing this. And me bringing in my neice and saying I was worried her brain would "get caught" was kinda like a comparison to how I thought she would get confused and grow up with their views and start to hate me (which I tried to make a little more clear what I said how I wanted her to love me for me, and that even though she didnt agree with who I was, she shouldn't leave. That was context of how even if you were taught one thing, you shouldnt immediately cut people off and hate them for who they are. Thank you for this review, and even though I 100% see where you are coming from, as I was not planning to post this before, I'm not going to edit it, but I greatly appreciate the thought and I will try to incorporate some of this into later poems. Thank you.