Margaret

Your mother said it like an aside,

like the girl you never were

was a song she'd almost played.

Margaret. Then a pause. Then your name

came out instead, and here you are,

the corrected version.

At midnight you searched for Margaret,

found the meaning, the history, the girls

who came before with that name

solid as stone.

Then you searched for your own name

and met a stranger looking back.

Margaret would have been—

someone else's daughter.

Someone else's regret, maybe.

Or someone else's certainty.

In your mom's handwriting on the back

of a photograph: Margaret,

then penciled out so gently

you can almost still read it.

The graphite smudged like she changed her mind

but couldn't quite erase the impulse.

You keep thinking about the version of you

that didn't get a second chance,

the one that lived in pencil marks

for one moment before disappearing.

Some girls are born.

Some girls are erased first,

then born as someone else.