In the quiet of the night, when the world seemed to hush its incessant chatter, I sat alone, cradling the emptiness in my chest. It wasn’t a tangible thing, not something I could hold or push away. It was a hollow ache, an echoing reminder of all the times I felt unseen, unheard, and unimportant.
This weekend, I met someone new. I told them my name, my identity, a piece of myself. But they twisted it, mangled it, and when I corrected them, they dismissed the correction, like my name was an inconvenience. Just a sound to be reshaped as they saw fit.
It triggered something deep within me, a wound I thought had healed but was merely scabbed over, waiting for the slightest touch to rip it open. It wasn’t just the mispronunciation—it was the culmination of years spent feeling like I was shouting into a void, my voice swallowed whole by the indifference of those around me.
Teachers, classmates, strangers—they all butchered my name until I began to question its very essence. Was it even mine anymore? Or was it just a label others could mold into whatever shape they found convenient?
I felt small, a child again, desperate for validation but finding none. The child who cried in corners, unseen, unheard, forgotten. And now, as an adult, that child still lived within me, still cried, still ached.
There was a flicker of anger, a fleeting thought of revenge. To succeed, to rise above, to make them all remember my name in the end. But then, who would that serve? What solace would it bring to this broken soul of mine? The name they’d finally learn wouldn’t be for me—it’d be for their recognition, their acknowledgment. And I’d still be left with the hollow ache.
I am lost, wandering through a world that feels foreign, unwelcoming. I’m trapped in a cycle of doubt, questioning if it’s me or if it’s them. But I am the common denominator, so surely it must be me.
Right?
The hollowness whispered otherwise, though. It wasn’t just me. It was a world that had failed to see the value in names, in identities, in souls. A world too busy, too distracted, too indifferent.
I clung to that thought, that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t entirely my fault. And in the quiet of that night, as tears welled in my eyes, I held onto the hope that one day, someone would say my name right, not just in sound, but in spirit. And maybe then, the hollow ache would ease, even if just a little.