Sahar Fathi

What's In a Name

My name

Defines me.

It means

I got bullied growing up,

Cried all the way home 

More than once,

That grown-ass people

Still give me that

Pained look when I tell them

“It’s not Sarah,”

It means that

I don’t order Starbucks

Without a fake name

In my back pocket 

(I have two).

It is stubborn

Like I was when

I told my immigrant parents

Not to change it 

To something easier

Because they worried

Someday something bad

Might happen

It means

The ‘Dawn of Victory’

And when I tell

Someone born Persian

Their eyes light up

Repeating it and savoring 

The feeling of the poetry

In their mouths and

It means

That if I tell you-

If I whisper to you-

My real name,

That I am winning

In this war against all that is

Brown and different in America,

That truly,

I have already won.

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Sahar Fathi graduated from the University of Washington Law School and is a member of the New York bar. She has served as adjunct faculty at Seattle University and the University of Washington School of Law. Her poetry has been printed in Writers Resist and the Writers Resist: Anthology (2018), as well as featured in the Feelings' Journal, Not Your Mother's Breastmilk, and in ARTS by the People and Swimming with Elephants.