Title: My Common Demonized Moniker
Fandom: Original Poetry
Author: Hyperfocused
Characters/Pairing: me and people stuck with my name
Rating: T

Challenge: Amnesty + name
Length: ~250 words
Content Notes: none
Author's Note: none
Summary:The Name Blame Game.

.


My name, I once thought,
Had good sides and bad.


Personalized jewelry and tchotchkes
Were easy to find
 at your average store.
It had the most common spelling,
No  “C” or “y” or even “i”.


It balances well on a byline
(With my alliterative last name),
Or someday on a book jacket,
If my efforts pay off. 


When I was a child
I thought it was boring. Plain.
Serviceable but not pretty. 
 Not flowery or flowing. 
Certainly not suited to a princess,
Or one with a cute or spunky 
nickname.
It might as well have been Ann 
with no “e”.


Of the famous who had my name:
I don’t act brave like Allen,
Holding her own
With Indiana Jones.
I couldn’t sing like Carpenter,
I’d never be on top of the world.
I wasn’t a TV mom like Grassle,

With Pa, Laura and Mary,
In a little prairie house. 


For years my name 
Elicited a yawn,
It’s so much worse now. 
I know what it’s like to be damned
for something I can’t control. 
A choice my parents made
In honor of my just-passed grandfather,
Aaron. 


So to whoever decided 
“Karen” should be shorthand
 for a type of modern cretin,
If i was the type i'm purported to be,
I’d ask to see your manager.


Nobody I know with my name 
Fits that evil description,
Many people with many names do.


I am not your entitled bitch,
But I am entitled to bitch,
About what has become 
Of my common, demonized 
Moniker.