Shadows

Name Me - long poem

My name is Elaoise Benson,
E L A O I S E, Elaoise.
Its an unusual name, I know,
One that doesn't quite fall neatly,
Off the tip of your tongue.
It's the name of a girl,
That no matter how much they wish not to be,
They will be noticed.
Purely by the facination of their peculiar name.

Did you know, there is one.
One Elaoise Benson,
In the whole of the United Kingdom.
As a child that was,
Special, unique.
But as I've grown older,
The name began to smolder,
People saying someone should have told her,
That's not the way you spell it.
It seems far more pitiful.
Can I really live to the full?
The solitary soldier carrying the burden,
They ask if they misheard and,
I have to say no.
That's really how you pronounce my name.

It's not that I don't like my name,
The spelling creates sound all the same,
To those whose names are far more tame.
And my parents are wise,
I'm sure there was a reason.
Other than the fact that it pleased them,
the way it stretches in apeasment,
Its sylabols being engulfed,
In the hum of a desperately long sound.
But yet they always coddle me,
As if trying to pay the fee,
For what my name might have been.
Don't get me wrong it fits,
But my personality takes a hit,
My security always left in bits,
On the floor.

So I smile to cover up,
what I'm really thinking.
I wonder who my name makes me,
And if my peers will really hate me,
When I correct them one more time.
I wonder if I am the girl that misguidedly was given,
A name that cannot be forgiven,
For being clumsy and awkward.
A name that laughs to loud at the dinner table,
And watches way to much on the cable,
Just to try and keep it feeling stable,
In a world that it really doesn't understand.

My name is Elaoise Benson,
E L A O I S E, Elaoise.
My setbacks bring me to the foreground, of every class,
No time to hide behind a mask,
Never one to be called last...
We'll expect for in PE.
And I still don't know whether to cry or smile,
When every once in a while,
Someone asks me to explain,
My oh so unsual name.