Have I ever told you how much I love my name?

From a time when my feelings existed without explanation

Before coalescing into my truth, it existed as a tiny sound

Whispered for a lifetime in the depth of my dreams.

 

Have I ever told you how much I love my name?

Now fully grown it stands resolute in the face of resistance,

No longer willing to be kept silent by fears real or imagined.

It rises slowly at first, finally escaping as the full-throated declaration of my being.

 

I must have told you how much I love my name.

It’s a joyful sound to my ears, as it breaks free and bursts forth into the world

It rolls from my tongue without an instant of hesitation

A sweet sensation sweeping across lips fixed in a satisfied smile.

 

Have I ever told you how much I love my name?

As my hand hovers momentarily suspended above the page,

My imagination traces the letters in the air

Fingers absentmindedly caress the pen as I stare at the line on the bottom,

 

In language direct and simple it states, sign here;

But silently it also asks profoundly, who are you?

I reply, I am Rachel, and while I was not always Rachel to the world,

I have always been Rachel where it mattered, in my heart and soul.

 

This worldly reality given form at the insistence of my dreams,

It is given its final substance by these six simple letters.

I smile broadly as the final loop finishes with an unwavering flourish.

And so it is, the past corrected, today affirmed, Rachel’s legacy is assured.