128: What's In A Name?

Free at last, the past is gone
Finally I break the bonds
My life begins again as me
My names declares it, I do not belong to He
I am neither bought nor sold
I shall keep this name ‘til I am old.

How much simpler, to be a man
And keep a name for life
How confusing, to be a woman
First a maiden then a wife
God forbid you should divorce
Then you face an awful choice
Keep a name with troubled memories attached
Or change it and from your children be unmatched.

What name you go by is a very big deal
How we are labelled surely affects the way we feel
For the first time I have chosen my own
Made a statement with how I shall be known
Haven’t been myself since some long distant past
So comforting to be myself at last.

Lady Satellite