writing

boys bear a last name.
a label, a lineage, a ledger
handed down, heavy,
woven into identity.
all men accounted for,
every generation echoing the same notes.

mr. surname
the same sounds sung to the forefathers
one day, their sons will hear them again
and mistake the echo for meaning.
the surname lingers.

but i’m not a boy.
so what claim have i on the surname?

a woman with ambition.
i prize my pulse, my blood,
and it’s infuriating.
the surname isn’t enough.

i think of the women before me
strong, yes, but strained,
their strength shackled to another’s standards.
bent to someone else’s priorities,
property.
buried under the surname they never held.
so i can only feel pity.
not the strength or pride
that i imagine and envy the sons for feeling

everyone wants to be remembered.
to matter.
to mark a moment, a name, a note.
nobody wants the supporting role
in the only story ever told
this brief, burning stage
before oblivion swallows it all.
and yet the surname decides.
who stays.
who fades.

my children will carry my surname.
because i refuse any alternative
but still
it is my father’s surname.
is that even any better?

the world, the fathers, the law,
they all cared
that we marry,
that we bear,
that we keep the world spinning.
if they wanted us to patriotize our bloodlines,
they shouldn’t have erased us from the surname.

maybe the solution, really,
would be to forget the women.
to forsake the past,
to follow the fathers.
to claim the great men instead.
you could’ve been born male
just a coin, a chance.
get over yourself.

it would be easier that way.
therapeutic.

but that would be betrayal.
a break from truth.
it wasn’t a coin toss.
it was coded in conception.

claustrophobically cursed.
the surname was shortsighted.

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