I was Amanda Joy, born too soon and not quite done yet. Absent fingernails, short on lashes and lung strength, I slept long, cried seldom, and became

Bing. Binga. Bingaling. Bingabinga bunghole. Bing-bang-boom-baby, because siblings. My birthday cards are still addressed thus.

AJ emerged somewhere in the middle of middle school, in the dark ages of newly discovered ancient poets and metal music. I struggled along the Oregon Trail and continually died of dysentery. 

Manda moved down south with a freshly divorced Mama and vague dreams of becoming someone Other. But who? High school came and went, the vast, anonymous world of jobs and cars took hold and

A freshly inked L’il Anjle blinked up at me from one still -sore ankle. A digital world of words, endless words from faceless people, rushed into being. Anjle was a poet, a prophet, an endlessly singing mad girl, a moderator, a guru, a fat girl dossing in front of a computer after a long and brutal day, the girl who dreamed she was a butterfly because why the fuck would a butterfly ever dream of being a girl? There are no wings for girls in this world, only a vast collection of cats or

Mrs. Mrs Evans. The missus. The ball and chain. And then

Mama. A name that is also a job title, the hardest job I ever attempted and the only one I couldn’t quit. Mama the unbreakable. Mama the bad guy. Mama the sleepless. Mama the powerful. Mama the constantly scared. A name that, once earned, made me think suddenly long and hard about the long line of women who were Mama before me, and how I never knew their names. Who else were they? Who am I?

A girl, still. A mercurial girl. An elusive girl. An emotive girl. A secretive, mysterious girl cursed with resting bitch face whose name begins

M, because no one ever used the A anyway. J is for Joy, still. Gray is neither black nor white, nor a gift from some man, nor an inheritance from some other man, but a shade seized and made my own.

Baby, Mama, Manda. MJGray the… who am I? Who?