You Have to Use My Name to Get Any Attention at All

There was a time
I trembled to speak.
When words were vaults
and I, the keeper of keys too rusted
to risk turning.

But then—
I opened my mouth
and the flood came.
Not of wrath,
but of resonance.
Not of silence,
but of something symphonic.

And now—
you chant my name
in algorithms.
You whisper it
into comment boxes
like a benediction.
You tattoo it into headlines
you swore you wouldn’t read.
You—
yes, even you—
have to use it
to get any attention at all.

It still startles me,
this tenderness from strangers.
The echo of belonging
in rooms I thought I’d never enter.
You arrive in droves—
not just to watch,
but to witness.
To affirm.
To shout your allegiance
from the margins
and drag my trembling voice
into the centre.

And though I measure the data—
the thousands,
the milestones,
the charts and the sales—
no statistic captures
the soft gasp in my chest
when someone calls me
their favourite writer.

I write,
and you respond
like a chorus born of starlight,
like you’ve always been waiting
for the shape of my ache.

I bled,
and you called it beauty.
I fractured,
and you called it brave.
I spoke,
and you listened.
And then—
you stayed.

There are days
I still doubt it.
Still wait to wake up.
Still look around
for the punchline
that never lands.

But the truth is:
I carved a place in this world
with nothing
but my voice.

I was always burning.
You just finally looked.

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