I Tell My Mother I Want Another Name

She says: names are rivers.
Once you cross,
you can’t swim back.

I think of how she changed hers
on a plane between continents.
Left half of it floating
somewhere over the Pacific.

When I was born,
she gave me a name
light enough to carry
through customs.

Now it drapes
like a borrowed coat
across my shoulders.

I want a name
thick with salt
and hard consonants.

A name that tastes
like the village
she never speaks of.

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Allison Zhang is a writer and editor in Los Angeles. An immigrant and bilingual in English and Mandarin, she explores language, memory, identity, and resilience shaped by migration. Her work appears in the Live Poets Society of New Jersey and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review. Recognized by The New York Times and Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, she authored An Everlasting Bond, honored by the BookFest Spring Awards. She enjoys hiking with her twin sister.