The Name They Gave Me

Signing the form, a stiff, new pen

scratching on official paper.

First name, last, and then the space

for that middle one, again.

It felt foreign, like a stranger's mark,

a heavy stone, a burden.

Grandfather’s name, my mother said,

“for strength, for character and grace.”

But strength just feels like something gone,

a ghost that time cannot erase.

I don’t feel it, that stiff backbone,

that stern face in the photograph.

Just a hollow where the person’s flown,

leaving behind a fragile laugh.

And I wonder if they knew, then, when

they pinned that legacy to me,

that I’d just be me, a tired human,

not the man they hoped I’d be.