Binte Ya’akob
2018
You know not of these faces, not even half of who they truly are. When they ask you the question, your name spills out of your dry lips; a verbatim. A name that is supposed to encapsulate your entity, bound by those syllables that once dipped themselves into the fountain of the nameless. For what you are is fickle like that of a bundle of alphabets, chained by the very existence that ties blood to blood.
Binte
Bin
A bundle of nerves and tissues not possessing even a moniker and yet possessed by a being that already has. To erase is to merely smudge, permanent on the genetic coding of every deoxyribonucleic acid. So when you start your soliloquy of your life with 'I am my own person', fallacy ensues because you were never once given that option.
If Heaven's light shone on you despite your first cries, then you are a child loved.
But down it pours, thunder and all. Tears that couldn't possibly wash away the bequeathed name that sounded too much like an epithet, almost like a curse.
So when they ask you, in who do you see yourself, you will correct them by stating, who do you see when you look at yourself?
For me, I will see the eyes of the man I am to call Father, borrowed windows to the soul I cloned. I will witness the smile I mimicked from a woman I am to call Mother, version of sunshine that's a mere knock-off from hers.
So when they ask me again, what's your name? I shall supply them with an answer that is familiar, but never truly mine to truly keep.