“Even My Name” by Meghan DeJong

Even my name

is a hand

me

    down

It was selected for my sister but

Upon her birth it was deemed                 not worthy.

I try to take solace in the fact that it

Suits me better than her name

            Suits her.           I try to ignore that she was given

A name that means        hero. I am

Simply an ornament,                   a financial burden  As the stories go

we make due. We work hard       we live with

grease on our elbows we have so many

babies we run out of food

                        Run out of clothes

                                    Run out of names.

My middle name is not my own.

Stolen, I’ve been told, from my mother’s Younger Sister.

She wanted the name      for her daughter             but

my mother just birthed quicker.

Not that it was either of theirs to begin with.

My grandmother gave her name to                       my mother.

Tree of wisdom Those women taught

how to hold the hurt of so many hundreds of hand me down names

in your hands                and to sew them up again

Pass them on                            

like something worth inheriting

About Meghan DeJong
She/Her/Hers

Meghan DeJong is a recent alumna of Colorado State University's creative writing undergraduate program. In her free time, she enjoys learning how to cook, spoiling her dog, and trying to make sense of her life through writing. Her work has previously been published in CSU's Greyrock Review.