Isabella is the storm crashing down in the dark, wreaking havoc
It’s the lighthouse on a hill, peering over the town.
It means devoted to god and in which reminds me that I seem to never be,
The spot in a religion I was separated from long ago
Isabella is the name you give to a portrait, not a person.
Something framed, staring out at you with nothing to say.
Isabella, the syllables stretch too long in my mouth
Like a red carpet unrolling, all elegant and proper
A name that arrives with ceremony, when silence would do perfectly
I want names that crack when spoken, that carry dirt,
that sound like a door slamming
or someone breathing hard after running.
It clings to ponies and the color blue.
Each time I hear it, I expect opera, glass perfume bottles
And a gaze that waits for compliments
I hear it and think of polished surfaces, of smiles that don't reach the eyes,
of hands that have never known what it means to dig.
I say it, and feel like I’m pretending to care about silk gloves,
about ballroom floors, about things that glitter, but do not glow.
It feels like a name that was chosen for how it sounds in other people’s mouths,
not for the one who wears it.
It hangs in the air like a drapery, elegant and unnecessary
Isabella, the name arrives dressed for an occasion
that never mattered to me.
It tastes of overripe sweetness, of something practiced in front of a mirror
too many times.
There is distance in it, a kind of practiced elegance
that never quite touches the ground.
Isabella, it is too much name for too little meaning.
And I have always preferred the quiet ones, that don’t ask to be looked at.
Isabella does not jump, Isabella does not climb trees
or swim deep during the summer
Isabella waits to be adored, It does not walk quickly.
It does not shout, It does not sit cross-legged on the floor of a cluttered room.
Isabella, It’s not that I hate it. I just can’t find myself anywhere inside it,
But I want noise, I want raw, I want a name that feels like it’s lived.
And I am tired of names that are expected to be loved
Before they are known.