Where’s Your Name Tag, Darling?

1.

Your umbrella isn’t red.

It’s bleeding.

That’s different.

-

You’re not standing still.

You’re frozen.

There’s a difference, too.

-

The train doesn’t miss you.

It never knew you.

-

And everyone’s moving—yes, moving—

like ants, like algorithms, like they’re late to their own funerals.

Their faces blur. Yours? Not even in the frame.

They edited you out in post.

-

2.

They gave you a name, once.

A nice one. Neat vowels.

Pronounceable enough to be forgotten.

-

You carved it into a desk in Year Six.

Scraped it out again in Year Nine.

Changed it on paper at twenty-two.

-

Still doesn’t fit.

It itches behind the ears.

It’s not a name.

It’s a warning label.

-

3.

“Who are you supposed to be?”

-

Today?

Functional.

Palatable.

Not a threat.

Not a protest sign in heels.

Not a demographic they didn’t ask for.

-

Not loud.

Not queer.

Not political.

Not “too something.”

Not “not enough.”

-

Smile more.

No, not like that.

-

4.

Your umbrella is bleeding because everything else in you already has.

-

Because identity isn’t a coat you try on.

It’s a birthmark you were taught to sand off in public.

-

You still hear your mother’s voice:

“They don’t need to know all that about you.”

-

You tried being quiet.

You did.

But silence is a language too,

and they misread you in every dialect.

-

5.

The train comes again.

You don’t move.

-

Because the worst part of social identity

is that once they give you one—

you forget where your real one went.

-

Maybe in the locker room?

Maybe in the first boy’s mouth who said “dyke” and smirked?

Maybe in the HR form that didn’t have a box for “I’m still figuring it out, sorry”?

Maybe in the backseat.

Maybe in the police report that said “appeared agitated.”

-

Maybe in the mirror.

The one you haven’t looked in properly since—

well.

-

6.

You’re not the main character.

You’re the lighting cue.

The wet patch on the stage.

The echo of someone who never got cast.

-

They say society has no place for people like you.

But it does.

-

It needs you.

To fill the gap between quotas and discomfort.

To decorate the Diversity Poster.

To take the blame when systems fail and hashtags trend.

-

You're the fine print.

The disclaimer.

The “we tried.”

-

7.

And still.

You stand.

-

Soaked.

Not broken.

Just too sharp to sit down anymore.

-

You’ve made a decision.

You’re not going anywhere.

-

Let them blur.

Let the train scream.

Let the rain baptize the heretic you’ve become.

-

Because you?

You’re not society’s mistake.

You’re its mirror.

Cracked.

Reflecting.

And cutting every time they look too long.

.