baby name books

when i was in fifth grade
i checked out all the baby name books
from the library. i wanted help naming
the ghost who lived in my mouth. 
she was always rattling words & keeping me up
through the dark.  i did not have a mirror in
my bedroom but i did have a glass case
that i could use for divination 
if need be. a reflection the consistency 
of a veil. i did not care that they were
library books. i would dog-ear pages.
dance inside a name that really struck me. 
none of they held though. i imagined myself
palm-sized & soft. i took shovels to the books.
said names aloud. rolled them in sugar
& ate them past my bedtime by
the yellow lamplight. this could be a poem
about transness. about something innate in me
that craved to move. instead, i think it is
a poem about language fractures.
how a name is never really a name. it is 
an attempt to get a foothold in the elsewhere
of blood & bone. cats is my favorite musical
both because it is a poem & also because
the cats all have secret names beneath 
how they are known. i collected my secret names.
created a ritual around drinking them like water. 
i cannot tell you them or they would not
be secret but i can tell you that once a name 
is yours it never really leaves. a moon in orbit 
or a place where you pick raspberries.
my fingers are dripping with nectar. 
sometimes, i would take a library book back empty.