"Call Me" Duet
by Alexander Burdette

(pt. 1)

I think when I say “anything but ‘it,’” what I really mean is, “Make some choices so I can see if they work for me. Call me ‘he.’ Call me ‘they,’ in the same breath. Call me ‘e’ or ‘xe’ or ‘nir,’ so I can hear it. Call me ‘she,’ even, but make sure I know you do not think me a woman because of it. Call me any neopronoun you might know how to use. Make one up, if you like. I’m collecting data, collating results. The only thing I know right now is ‘it’ doesn’t work. Call me anything. Call me anything else under the sun. This is science; that’s why it’s called ‘experimenting.’ Give me enough data points that I can discern any kind of pattern at all, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on yet.

Give me a multitude, that I might divine.”

(pt. 2)

It’s enough syllables to wrap around me like a cloak. Nine letters long: three by three. A pair of trochees like a coal in my hand. “Enough of a name to keep me warm,” I say, my lips upturned at the end, like a joke. Mayhap they’ll think so. But the truth lies buried like the warm ember at the heart of my name: it is warm. Nestled comfortably inside and a clear enough sound for the highest summer sky.

My last name was cool blue, bordering on periwinkle, and would sometimes fluff into wisteria when I gave it out whole. This one, that I picked, is sparks and embers wrapped in steady dark brown branches that never crumble away in ash. I picked a name that rolls amber off my tongue and tingles at the touch.

A name that keeps me warm resting in my voicebox and my heart and my core. A name that rattles its trochees in my hands and rings itself in the air inside my skull.