I am a birth certificate in my mom’s drawer.
I am 5th from the right in the second row in my class picture.
I am a drooping self portrait done in watercolor and hung on the fridge.
I am the name cited at the end of a “poem” written in crayon molding in the city dump.
I am two words in a registry with the number nine to the right of it to represent years since birth.
I am the boy standing left center with his left hand in the air on the cover of a the JCC’s magazine.
I am the name ,picture, lifespan and hopefully more in my little box a few levels up on the family tree.
I am slowly but certainly expanding and swelling to larger importance, that is, at least in my own mind.
I am one more person who needs a medal manufactured and sent to me as I have won my basketball championship.
I am the order name at the bottom of a West Portal coffee shop’s receipt, left behind on a kitchen table, not in the trash can.
I am the person in the middle of a photobooth picture taken at a reunion at Presidio Bowl stuck to a clipboard by a thumbtack.
I am the 2:30 appointment for a thirty minute high school interview and everything that the interviewer thought was noteworthy.
I am the name, picture and autobiography in a 1”x3” section on the seventh page of A.C.T.’s 2016 Christmas Carol 8.5”x11” program.
I am a name etched into a wall in dressing room 4 across from the entrance put there by a 13 year-old me with free time and a stray thumbtack.
I am everything that you could learn about me without asking anyone or ever meeting me, which is everything that would be left behind if I dropped dead tomorrow. That’s not fair.
I’m still learning