I no longer have the name I was given
when I was seven it was changed
"for your safety"
Like my mother would care enough to come find me
the only thing she cared about was her next fix
I didn't get a say in the changing of my birth name
They changed
One
Letter.
One letter later I had a different identity
I hated the name, told my adoptive mother so
every time she called me it I responded with
That's Not My Name.
but here I am, ten years later, responding to a name I hate
It reminds me that they didn't care enough to listen to me
That's Not My Name.
sometimes when strangers ask me for my name I am still tempted
to respond with the name of my past
it is beautiful, it was MY NAME.
All I wanted was to have an opinion, to be heard
To keep my name my name my name MY NAME.
That's not my name

All in all in me
I might never really love you cause
I don't even love myself

Sometimes a person's soul is so beautiful, it breaks your heart,
and it does more than merely awaken.
It makes you question, leaving you a wholly different being than you were before your souls met.
The person you were before,
has been shaken from its shell,
and now has to learn to live in a world that seems foreign, seems out of place.
Life is never the same when we encounter such souls,
and why would we wish it to be?

-Rhia Clay