Mz

Why does it seem so illegal to still use the names my lovers have given me in the past? I had this discussion with a friend of mine and it just seems like another opportunity to not allow me to be free.

No matter what happens in my intimate life with someone, if I saw them in my every day life, I would like to still be called tigresa or preciosa or mama. And be free enough to call them daddy or santo or baby. It seems strange to use real names after someone's had their fingers really up in you, or you've managed to conquer each other. I recognize not everyone (including new partners, friends, etc.) would be comfortable with this but it feels forced and fake to use parent-given names for people I once loved intensely and still love in some ways, even if it's only love as a visor for the past.

I think to force ourselves not to use these loving names is to negate the love that was there, to deny the potential we all have for serving as a marker of both the past and its influence in the present. Women have changed and guided me. I cannot imagine not calling them from within a language of love and enjoying that they are living and experiencing everything life can offer them at this point.

There - just a little bit of my Independence Day.