Nombre

No one knows how to respond when I say your name anymore

I receive whispers of, “I’m sorry”

The arching of eyebrows over sympathetic orbs

As if they can see the past few years being drawn out in grey ink as my lips open and close

The very sound of your name makes all of them uncomfortable.

And at first, I didn’t blame them.

I used to say that I wasn’t too sure what I was expecting at that point in time and

I wasn’t too sure what was plausible to say and

I wasn’t too sure how much I was supposed to hide

But I knew that I didn’t want to hide you

I knew that I didn’t want to erase you from the part of me that was left after you left,

But I accidentally did.

And I faced it the other day when a boy that I called a good friend forgot that you existed,

“Do you ever wish that you had a little sister?” he asked,

“I used to have one.” I replied.

Suddenly those sympathetic orbs enlarged as he frantically apologized.

I forgave him.

And then stared at the hole he unintentionally kicked through my gut and grasped the edges with my fingertips and tore it a bit wider as punishment

And I remembered the cost of not saying your name enough

Of worrying more about everyone else’s comfort and serving less to your legacy

I let the fear that those sympathetic orbs would swallow me into a darkness where there would be nothing left except for me and my self-inflicted pity

I experienced all of the natural disasters in every physical and mental state of my body

And assigned them to emotions and let them destroy me

Because I should have known better, Mia

I should have known better than to ever let these people that I don’t give a shit about tell me to forget you, Mia

So now, I say your name out loud every morning that I wake up and every night that I’m about to fall asleep,

As a matter of fact,

There’s some part of me that seems to think

That the more times I whisper your name before falling asleep the better chances are that I’ll dream of you, Mia

That by some chance, your smell will return to the pillow that I’ve been smothering myself with to muffle the murder being committed in my organs, Mia

That maybe, just maybe, I will be handed a miracle and I won’t have to remember how I found out that sometimes, the movies are bullshit

Because when a person dies staring at the ceiling you can’t always close their eyes

We were forced to watch you sleep with your eyes wide open and unblinking and in a way,

We fell asleep with you for years

Until I realized that sleep walking wasn’t doing any of us any good, Mia

So, I say her name to wake up,

Mia

I say her name to remember how it sounds hanging and fading in the air,

Mia

I say her name because sometimes, Mom and Dad just need to hear their baby girl’s name out loud,

Mia

I say her name because now, I fucking can,

Mia.