Hello My Name Is

They gave me a sticker and a thin marker

at the registration table, and I wrote

my name—which is fine, it's just a name—

except the H came out too wide

and the rest of the letters had to crowd

together after, compensating,

and I don't know why I'm telling you that.

I wore it all day.

Kept touching the corner without meaning to,

the way you check a bruise—

not to fix it, just to confirm it's there.

In the elevator at five I peeled it off.

It pulled a little lint from my shirt.

Left a pale adhesive square on my chest,

faint, the shape of nothing in particular.

I stood there holding it—

my own name in my own handwriting,

the H still too big, the rest still cramped—

and the doors opened and I dropped it

in the hotel trash without looking down.

Three days later.

The square. The lint.

What I thought it was going to say.