Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Someone asked me

 

What is your name?
To name is to make known,
to specify, enliven, color in,
to make dimensional.

My surname: Verdant. Given name, Green and Round.
Given by me, to me. Green Round Verdant.
Or is that what I long to be?

My name is often She. She plus Who.
She Who Sings, She Who Creates, She Who Loves.

Define me, please, by what I love,
If you must define at all.

Being Gemini feels like
a delicious excuse to be myriad things,
many Shes, and so I introduce
She Who Flowers
She Who Avoids
She Who Storms.
She Who? She Who Knows
She Who Knows Much
She Who Knows Much about Little.

My name is Skin, warm and well-used,
mapped with roads of veins. Rivers of stretch
mark the spots where I expanded
to include more than I ever
thought I could, maybe
more than I should, so perhaps,
this She is named Adaptable.

Almost Crone.
That, too, is mine to claim.
She Who Softens into Aging, She
Who Welcomes the Amorphous Opening Nature of It.

That last one should be illegal, far too long.

Hungry. My name is Hungry for What?
Am I Too Hungry? My name is
Tell Me The Shapes of Your Hungers.

Yesterday my name was Tight.
Not Good Enough.
Not Enough. Never Enough.
My name was I Have Nothing Worth Saying.
May I Please. How May I Please?
May I Please, Please.

Towards tomorrow my name is Santosha,
short for
May I Be Content.
May I Be.
Content.

 

–Melinda Coppola

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