In a Name

My name means gift from god.

But how can I be a gift from a thing that doesn’t exist,

or from an idea I don’t believe in?

I suppose it’s the thought that counts.

I suppose I could shift perspective and reframe:

my name means gift from the universe.

The universe does exist, and I do believe in its infinite capacity to give and receive.

And also to create and destroy, to show and hide, 

but never allude

or force us to be unnatural: 

not just good and right, 

but a specific flavor of good, a certain sense of right,

bending to rules on how to exist in such a way

the universe itself becomes something other than what it is:

A big box of things with finite shapes and predefined purposes. 

The gift then is not a gift but a Trojan horse:

“Here parents, this is for you.

Disclaimer: you must use her in this specific way, 

and she must be this way always.”


If that is the thought, how thoughtless…and shortsighted 

‘cause I have never been, I am not now,

and I can confidently predict that

I will never be always good in any flavor and always right by any design.

I am, as all things, a microcosm of the universe.

I can never be any one thing at all times

but many things always.