Unspoken names (and the things they cause)

I had many names over the years. Some where given to me.

Cinta.

Pandora.

Melanie.

Some I gave myself.

Lily.

Mia.

Hermine.

Some where used to belittle me.

Fim (being the equivalent to "fat little daughter")

Pelongo.

Weirdo (not really a name, but they called me that anyway).

I liked some of them.

Mia.

Pandora.

Bianca.

(even if I know they aren't me).

I hated some of them.

Pepinka.

Salami.

Plani.

(even if I know they aren't me)

The second name I got was in kindergarten. It was Salami, if you are interested.

I was confused. Upset. I hated it.

I didn't wanted to be remembered by a sausage, by something haram (even if I didn't understood back then what that meant).

When I told my dad, who I called daddy back then, he just laughed.

"Sounds like my little baby got a nickname."

"What's a nickname, daddy?"

"It's what your friends call you. "

"But I don't like it! I don't want to be called Salami!"

He didn't understood me of course. Tried to explain to me, that just happens sometimes and nothing more. That it isn't that serious.

But after all, my dad never was called Salami in kindergarten.

No one in elementary school used my first name, it was just the first name I've ever been given. Plenty would follow.

My peers usually didn't talked with me, so they didn't used any names. Maybe "weirdo", but that was worse than no name at all.

I learned every of their names, even if they were three Julia's and two Victoria's. They didn't bothered to do the same.

My third grades religion teacher pulled me besides on day.

"You know that I wanted to talk with you about the saints we're named after, right?"

I nodded. The others already wrote their names down, looking at the work sheets and looking wich saint they are.

"But you aren't named after a saint, are you", she said, with shock in her face, as if I threw someone from the swing. "Do you know what your name means?"

I nodded again. "It means rainbow."

"Well if you know then you can...", she looked around. "You can just draw something."

My classmates looked at me with jealousy, wanting to draw something instead of working. Wanting to take their pencils, to paint instead of write. To look at colours instead if words.

I looked at my classmates with jealousy, wanting to be part of the assignment, wanting to be part of the rest of the class. I wanted to be named after a saint, even if I didn't knew what that meant.

With jealousy in the air, I drew a rainbow. The others could write Isabella, Daniel, Victoria, telling the others with excitement in their eyes what their names meant. I didn't had to tell anyone, I just showed everyone my painting.

In 5th grade I created my first fake account. Mia, I called myself. After a while, I believed it was really my name. Others began calling me Mia. They thought it's a joke. What they couldn't know is that I was 100% ready to change my legal name into Mia it felt so good. It felt so good, being recognized, being seen, being called.

But as they stopped finding the joke funny anymore, they stopped calling me Mia. So name for me again.

It all wasn't that bad. Sure, sometimes I forgot my name because no one used it. But there where worse thing. For example, what was about to happen.

My mind was always a bit...diffrent than from others. Adults called it creative. My peers called it weird. I call it a unreal life. A lie. A savior. Hell. Heaven.

You see, back then in elementary school, as the others wouldn't wanted to play with me, I just...told myself they did. I imagined playing with them in the woods, screaming, running, fighting dangerous animals. It caused wounds, wounds I could feel even if my skin was perfectly fine.

I didn't made up a fictive world in my head. I made several.

Me, in rich.

Me, in smart.

Me, with many friends.

Some of my friends existed in the outside world. We played in my head but whenever we saw us in the classroom they barely even looked at me.

(In this moments I sometimes asked myself what I did wrong for them to ignore me. Then I thought it's because how I am. Then I remembered myself that we technically aren't friends in this world. Then I thought it's because how I am.)

Some of my friends existed just in my head.

Joshua.

Diana.

Iris.

I knew they weren't real. That they weren't walking, breathing, living creatures like I am. But I didn't cared. They were real enough for me.

(they were comforting enough).

Over the years, it got worse. Because now there weren't just my fictional friends, but also the fictional me's.

Maria Gonzola, nanny for a rich family, raising a boy.

Barnie, acrobat in a circus, run away from home, rejects their family.

Ruth Tinker, sick girl from the thirties.

I somehow convinced myself that I am that. That I'm not just me, that I'm more than myself.

And maybe that's harmful.

Maybe it isn't.

Joshua says I need to stop. That I just destroy my life that way. I don't know if he's outside or inside my head and I don't if he knows or not.

My first name is something I don't hear anymore. People outside are too afraid to spell it and people inside think my name is Bianca, Mareesha or Anastasia.

This was the tale of the girl with the unspoken name.

She isn't just me.

She isn't just you.

She can be everyone.

(and there are more than you may think)

She is the brown immigrant('s child), who has a perfectly normal name in her home country, but here no one dares to say it.

She is the neglected child. The one, neither her parents nor the authorities care about.

She is trans and people just don't use her name.

She is me.

She is you.

She is everyone with an unspoken name.