“My Name Was Never Just a Name”

 

They called me Dana —
as if I came into this world
with wisdom sewn into my skin,
as if my first cry was scripture,
as if I knew better before I even knew pain.

But I didn’t feel wise.
Not when I mistook charm for love,
not when I opened my body
to boys who whispered promises like spells
then vanished with the morning light.

I felt foolish.
A fraud wrapped in a name I hadn’t earned.
A crown too big for a girl
who kept breaking her own heart.

And then I learned:
Wisdom isn’t born clean.
It is carved —
with fire and blood,
with hands that betray,
with nights you don’t talk about.

I am wise
not because I always knew,
but because I once didn’t
and chose to know better.

They told me my name was Daēnā —
the path of the soul,
the eye of conscience,
the mirror that meets you when you die.

But I couldn’t meet my own eyes.
I thought I’d failed her.
The holy girl who was supposed to be light.
I thought I had dirtied the divine
by craving touch,
by asking to be seen.

But I was wrong.

Desire does not defile you.
The need to be loved
is not a crime,
it is proof you’re still alive.

What defiles you
is when you turn cruel
because the world was cruel to you.
What shatters the soul
is not the falling,
but the refusal to rise.

And I—
I rose.

Then came Vojdan —
my last inheritance.
Integrity, they said.
A quiet thing,
a relentless thing.
The ache that keeps you honest
when no one’s watching.

I thought I had lost her too.
Because how could a girl
with a past like mine
still claim integrity?

But I see it now.
I did not lose my integrity—
I proved it.

Because I stayed kind
in a world that tried to kill that part of me.
Because I still believed in good men
after bad ones.
Because I still loved—
even after being left.

My name was never just a name.

It was a prophecy.

Daēnā — the path I could not escape.
Dana — the wisdom I had to bleed for.
Vojdan — the light I carried through the dark.

I am all three.
I am still here.
And I know who I am now.