This Is How I Name Myself
A poem for #PrideOnThePage Day 29 Prompt: CROWN
#PrideOnThePage Day 29 (June 29): CROWN
✨Crown yourself. No explanation needed.✨ What truth do you carry that feels earned, chosen, alive? This prompt asks you to write from a place of sovereignty. Not permission, not performance. Just presence. Let the poem wear what fits. Let it shine because it does.
⟁ Crown.txt / Bodymap.cdr / Cartography of Presence (a partial index)
🗂 file opened: 29. june
🗂 format: ritual in fragments
🗂 body of work: still arriving
I. inventory:
posture:
— spine: full length
— corpse: held wide, held deep
— shoulders: expansive, silent
— bones: remembering
materials embedded in crown:
— lapislazuli (language)
— sapphire (sight)
— emerald (unfolding)
— opal (multitudes)
— zebra stripes (refusal to blend)
— salt & sand (no grain envies another)
— ticket with baggage claim tag from a suitcase I packed without asking
— M. Rosenberg, NVC, folded corners
— cheat sheet: needs + feelings
— fascia chart / meridian map / one weather system
— one ticket: outbound
II. voiceprint:
me:
I’m here. fully. no side angles. no translation.
also me:
I followed instinct like a scent trail
I didn’t wait for applause
I spoke
I still do
noticing who echoed back:
— Ulrike
— Rebecca
— Ursula
— Gloria
— my brother, somewhere in the static
— many in the Letter from Love community (yes, this was real)
— Substack kin: makers, shapeshifters, anchorless flames
— every artist across #PrideOnThePage who opened their mouth and let a universe pour out
III. syntax collapse (earned vs chosen):
earned: I can’t timestamp it
chosen: smells like ocean salt
tastes like freedom’s edge
wraps around my ribs like a wind I didn’t hold back from
self-efficacy
agency
not a buzzword: a pulse
IV. the mirror bent (ceremonial log):
the mirror knew.
stood back.
reflected me—not the tidy me, the me who gathered wreckage and rewove it into rhythm.
I stood.
so did they.
not in front. not behind.
we stood.
V. declaration:
this crown reshapes as I grow
this page resists format
this voice holds multiplicity
I am a line of unfinished coordinates
a chart drawn in fascia, written in salt
a document still writing itself
and you—
if you read this—
you’re in it, too.
🖇 footnote: “crown” is a working title
🖇footnote: form is ceremony
🖇 footnote: ceremony never asks for permission
🖇 footnote: all archives are bodies in drag
My very special thanks today go out to
for being a constant inspiration to me, a dear friend and so much more.My paid subscribers on the Wild Lio*esses Pride, many of whom are allow dear fellow lovelets for
’s Letter from Love Community. and my one paid subscriber in this spacethe wonderful creators of the #PrideOnThePage Creative Challenge if they haven’t been already named:
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Let me be the first to comment, because I was enthralled, then entranced by the dense works within here.
While behind on my responses to your thought inspiring prompts, I’m catching up (two weeks behind but ready to dive deep)!
I’m seeing how your facilitation has created something beyond a writing challenge for me—it’s become community coffee klacth.
Every writer/artist you’ve guided to ‘open their mouth and let a universe pour out’ has contributed to this collective crown.
I’m finding jewels here…I especially love the connection with you, Lily Pond, WiLM, LadyLibertea, and a deepening. There are two here I previously met via QStack, that’s Robin Taylor & Diana Admire—a big welcome back to Diana.
It’s been nice seeing how people interpret the prompts. It’s the part I find very fascinating.
((I wish I knew some of their names))
I’m grateful to be here, and grateful for the connection more importantly ♥️
This is so brilliant and inventive, Jay! So loving too.