Ash Sternberg
I’ll take a knife to the sprawl of
unassuming femininity
Three letters and six inches of hair
“You can still grow it out”
My mother says
But there are other things I have grown out of
Like the instinct to turn my head
When she calls me by
A deceased badge of girlish dishonor
I am more joyed now
to meet someone with my chosen name
Than pained to meet someone with the old
I am ash like the tree
Or the aftermath of a
controlled burn
It will never leave her lips
But to hear it from the rest of the world
Is a salve to the once painful skin
A remedy, a relief, a revival
A single syllable taken
from a breath of consolation
Becoming the word
Or the word becoming me
A name no longer heavy on my tongue