Untitled.

They named me Stephen.

Maybe to them it had meaning.

Maybe it was the name of someone great

Someone’s great uncle.

It could’ve had significance.

It could’ve been a prophecy.

Predicting my downfall.

Like that guy in the Bible

Who was stoned to death.

A rock, not a pebble, slowly lifted off the ground,

Catapulting at my head, speeds unfathomable

and then neck bent backwards, bones cracking,

blood gushing, rushing down my spine, falling to the ground.

Those people who named me

Thinking they were doing something kind.

Like my name could be sweet.

Just any old name could taste as honey.

Tonight, I got stoned.

I had nowhere to go.

Nowhere to lay my head.

Leaning against that wall, I slipped into a reverie.

An eerie embodiment of all I’ve ever held dear.

Like that picture on my wall of a woman

Wearing a white dress.  She looked so happy,

As though her dreams were coming true,

A fairy tale in the making.

I started to think about how that dream quickly ended

When her prince became a monster and two little birds

Poked her eyes out, blinding her to the horror story she found

Herself in.

She gave me that name before he left,

and she hid in that room wearing the skin of a donkey.

All I remember was how soft to the touch she was.

They called me that name out of love and anger and sadness.

It was mine, they thought.

As though a name was a belonging.  Like it was a

Possession to behold.

All those who came before me

Throwing their weight on my shoulders,

Together, a giant,

In this fight.

And a couple of stones would bring me

To my knees and kill me.

Dirty stones from the ground.  The ground

Where we all came.  Rough stones.

Raw, unpolished, heavy stones, hurled

At my face.

A martyr on the street corner.

Bruised and bleeding and dead.

They named me Stephen.

And it will forever be engraved on my tombstone.

It will be forever mine.