A.. My name.. What’s in a name? 3.. 6.. 9 letters? It’s all the same. The hard syllables that echo from mouths, ones so eager to fly to my ears only to get a bit of attention. But what's attention anyways? People saying hi and kissing you on the cheek, or the sheer acknowledgement of eye contact accompanied by a smile. Attention is standing on a stage and receiving an award and every onlooker starring back in awe. Though I’m not talking about attention. I’m talking about the sheer love for every line that goes into a name, the ones that go unnoticed, deep within the scribbles of the word. In instance the letter A. It consists of normally 3 lines, up at a right angle, down at a left, and then one carefully placed line directly horizontal connecting the marks. That wasn’t hard, but the memories each stroke contains are priceless, etching into my mind as I write them over and over on paper after paper for what purpose? So that everyone knows what to call me. To know whom the desecrated paper that’s filled with lines belongs to. Names mean more than words in the world. Ask anyone, if you were to read a book, which would you rather read, just by a name. The book by a name like that of Brittany Spears, or some unknown like Hillary Gorman?
Ae.. E. A stroke across with a loop somewhat like a C surrounding it. Protection, protection from what? What the world that constantly bombards you with? Advertisements of products, and their insane suggestions of how society should be. It’s almost as sickening as the Stepford Wives. My name wasn’t always like this.. It used to be cute and frilly, royal with a tint of a spoiled brat. Alexandra. Oh how vibrant it sounded, just to have the sound ring in your ears was a joy. No, it was too common. Alexandra, the protector of mankind.. But who was their to protect her? Everyday in and out she would calm all the other children after their marbles were stolen or that new Barbie they had gotten was ruined from mud. All the while in my mind I hated every one of them, how pathetic to cry over something so petty when their was a whole world out there. So I graduated to Ali. My parental nickname. I felt older, like I so longed to be. More respected because I didn’t have to be shouted at with a full name like the kids next door who refused to come when their mother called them.
Ael.. L, how simplistic alone, a straight line up and down, like a barrier to everything. The wall protecting the first initial. As E stays on its own like a solider prepared for war, L is the fortress that holds the castle safe. But why should it, it had no reason to hold itself from the lies that are thrown at it day by day. I guess that’s what you get in return for being the grand liar as a protector, for lies never solve much, they only cause pain and mistrust. The long stroke slicing across my heart like a jagged sword entranced with a curse by an old witch. One that wanted me to be destined to receive back what I had given, the good and bad intertwined 3 folds over. Its funny how that little protector really can never tell what's in store. No matter how simple the line it still is a huge impact on such a small thing.
Aeli.. I, ah, my favorite letter to decorate. Adorned with a dot or circle, sometimes an x for show, but for you my dear it’s a heart, just like for all those special notes. I is a decoy, part of that whole master plan to win the waging battle against any feeling or emotion. I is numb and fearless. It charges into battle attacking and pulling the offence away from home. It’s the icy plunge into my heart and soul that it has been trained to know. No regret, no consequence. There is only the objective, and that is to win, to dominate, to know your opponents next move and only strike them with even move force, tearing into the searing flesh they tend to so willingly show. It’s the one that gets us into trouble as I make the line halfway down and then add the curves of a heart above. I just doesn’t know when to stop, it’s the one that makes me say to much.
Aelin.. N is the calm in the storm, the only point of compromise and peace. It’s the arch that holds its master, safe with its keystone in place. It’s the one letter that has no main point, it’s simply there. It’s the shape-shifting temptress. The one that molds to everyone’s desires. That one that loves romantic movies that end up in fairy tale endings and that one that loves a good tragedy. It means more to come, the enticement to know more, what's beyond the arch, behind the veil that dangles from it. The arch’s columns vined with the curiosity of roses, its thorns sharp and menacing. The double-edged blade from which the mirrored lines come from. A line straight down, and then an arch upward and dragged down to the bottom of the line. The sharpness of it only dulled by the soft curve of the letter, like the rising hot passion of flesh on flesh. The curves of a body, a face, my mold. Though the keystone will forever hold, its open tunnel is the weakness of the fortress, letting in the other army when they should not be there. My delusion that the next will be the last, yet it never happens that way.
Aelina.. The last letter, a elongated circle with a tail dragging after it to the right. Boy did those lessons in pre-school help me learn to write my name. Its funny how we can look back on something so petty and not realize the importance of it at that moment, but only years later as I write the letters in order on the piece of paper. I stare at the world my mind has created in ink. The last letter filling the puzzle of the citadel. It’s the chapel that surrounds the stronghold, the shell of it all that balances on both sides. It’s the princess that the war is waging for, me, as the Helen of Troy. There is a slight desperation in the letter, to please and calm, to be its own entity. That’s just the way I had to put it, how my name had to be. It had to be like that to symbolize me.
As I write the name at the bottom of the paper, it seems somehow ironic how you can be involved in every one of these letters, etching them into my skin, my heart, my mind. The imprint left in me like that little handprint you once showed me from when you were a baby. The one that you squished into clay for a stepping stone in the garden for your mom, how I thought you were so sweet. The war that wages on in my name was only to fiend you off, to end the indecisiveness, to end the leaking tears that flood my cheeks, as you don’t seem to care anymore. Aelina. Its signed ‘Sincerely with love’, as it truly is, noted by the heart dotted I. The words on the paper runny with remorse and mourning for something that might have never been there to begin with. But with it all being the same and me left not knowing where I was in the first place, I still feel that poison. The irresistible poison that you gave me, a drug of ecstasy, even if I only held it from the briefest of moments. The poison the pain that it left me, as I slide the folded paper sincerely signed with my name underneath your door.