Euonyms

(or, Tell Me My Names)

I’ve called on others to analyze me
To evaluate and judge me
To name me as they see fit
Hoping to understand
What they understand 

I want, so badly, to understand

Should you find your way
While searching for my true name
To the tiny spaces between these organs
Where some of the deepest trust hides
You might find the secret corners
That the truest words spill from
Words tangled together with 
Wonder from discoveries
Blood from wounds 
Joy and anger from encounters unpredicted 

When I find you there
If you’re not too repulsed to stay, or frightened enough to flee
Maybe I’ll be brave enough to hand you a key
So you can enter the deeper, darker places where I can’t look
The places that, unknown as they are, frighten me to think about
Where I never dare go

If you return
Not repulsed or bored
If you still come peacefully
And if I’m still feeling brave
Maybe I’ll ask you to sit with me

Don’t face me; sit at my side
Exist in my periphery
So we both can look at at the world in front of us
Or I’ll close my eyes
So my entire world is only what I can hear 

Whisper your findings into that world
Quietly tell it all about me
Softly give it the names you found
My true names

My sensitive ears will hear
Your conversation with the universe
I’ll hear you tell it all about what you found
In your journey to my underworld 

Maybe then I’ll start to understand
What you came to understand
When you travelled under my shadows
And I’ll finally taste the fruit
Of that deeply buried seed I sprouted from in my youth
Now half-dead and long forgotten 

January 27 – March 18, 2025

(Follow up to Call Out My Name)