[ WP ] `` Names are made to be spoken . ''

I've always mentally fumbled with the concept of my name. It has a lucky number of letters and a pleasantly equal distribution of vowels and consonants to satisfy the listener. It's neither popular nor obscure. It's the sort of name we all know of someone who has it as their own. 
 
 Yet at every utterance I only feel it's tone as sharp edges, limber, extended pinpricks. A unique discomfort ever present since childhood. Perhaps it's a unique feature of my introversion. How in a crowded room, I bloom into a blush when all eyes are on me. Or the secret twinge and fright before an expected performance only an empty stage can invite. The special mortification of tripping on your own two feet. 
 
 So when it's said, I spurn it. It feels foreign enough on my tongue I never say it. And even with others, there's a pause and lapse before I think, `` that's me''. 
 
 I'm certain I'd never heard you say it before tonight. The first time we became us. Even in though it's in its infancy, there's a familiarity between our bodies now. Where breath and our rhythm have become instinctual. I trace your skin first with my fingers, and then my tongue. My lip unfurls and lingers against your collarbone. 
 
 And you call my name, say it soft and slow in exhales between our movements. You say the Oh, as if you did n't know. At first the Oh was your surprise, then your pleasure. Oh, and then my name. Oh, real slow, and then my name. The letters do n't burn, but unfold. Oh, oh, my name. A revelation. You say it twice, in an exhale, then ecstasy. 
 
 Slowly we collapse into each other's exhaustion and satisfaction. We lay curled together in the dark and silence. 
 
 `` I like how you say my name'' I say as I move deeper into the encompassing crook of your arm. 
 
 `` Names are made to be spoken'' you kiss my forehead and say. 
 
 Please say it again. 
 
 -- 
 
 I've always been fascinated with names, especially people who hate their names. It's such an intrinsic part of our identities, I can only imagine how dissatisfaction with your name would affect a person. Like any other feature we hate about ourselves, can you learn to love it? As an introvert, it'd be a special sort of torture if I hated my own name or was embarrassed by it. I'm grateful I do n't. I will probably add this to a small collection of little stories about people who hate something about themselves. 

