My Name Is...

“My name is Margaret, but you can call me Mar…”

MAR is the girl whose confidence and charisma strikes you immediately. Mar is the name that people easily remember for its clarity and ease. Mar is a name that you just cannot get wrong. MARGARET is the girl whose voice fades away apologetically when she is asked to repeat her name one more time.

Mar-ga-ret.

Margaret is a name that is spelt differently in every person’s mind, and is easily forgettable. Margaret is enigmatic, but more commonly thought of as complicated. // MAR is the outgoing and outspoken girl who doesn’t stutter at an introduction, the girl whose eyes can light a curious fire in your soul with the slightest glance, and whose smile can compare to the luminosity of the stars. MARGARET is the girl who looks down at the floor when she talks, and hides her tired smile behind her soft brown hair. Margaret always questions who her real friends are and if they even remember that her full name is Margaret and if they care to know of the girl that the name Margaret really presents. // MAR is the girl who turns heads and attention towards herself in a full room. Mar can flaunt her dominance with a single hair flip, and has the mentality that she can take over the world. MARGARET stays home goes through pen and paper like she goes through her cups of coffee. No one knows of the brilliant and beautiful and destructive thoughts that she thinks for they are only poured out as illegible scribbles of pen that tried to tell stories similar to the ones of the dashes engraved into her own skin. // MAR is straightforward and daring. Nothing rattles her nerves. Mar owns who she is and makes herself unforgettable to others. MARGARET gets mistaken for other Margrets and Margarettes and Margareths, but she doesn’t let it bother her because she doesn’t want to be impolite, she has learned to bite her tongue out of what she thinks is courtesy. Margaret doesn’t want to make herself be just another name to remember and another stupid story to know. // MAR is the girl who is the simpler version of Margaret; no baggage, no damage, no room for misspellings or mess ups. Mar is the girl who you see as perfect, the girl who seems to have it all together while MARGARET is so wound up with the length of her name and all the things she needs to do and needs to be. // MAR is the name that is forced into my mouth when my friends introduce me and it is the identity I am given to show to people who want to see MARGARET as MAR and not MARGARET as the girl that the name MARGARET truly encapsulates. Margaret is the girl that people scold for having so many different ways of spelling the name and so many complications with how she wants things done and how she wants to live her life and express herself and how she wants her name spelt. // Mar is the name that people automatically give me, for she is the girl that people remember. MAR is the girl that people want to know. Mar is the girl I have been conditioned to think I need to be. But I’m MARGARET. I know that. MAR is just the girl who is easier to write about— because she is the one that I have been killing myself trying to become.