His name died that day, and I absolved myself of any possessiveness of him
To me, no longer was he, the name he claimed since childhood
or the name belonging to him within the confines of my phone
He lost ownership of the inside jokes we shared
and any conventional pet names.. sweetie… love… baby…

For a while he was nothing
no name, no claim
The Villain.
My friends called him Voldemort.
My father called him 4th Street (what a drag it is to see him)

Eventually he became the formal– his father’s name, his grandfather’s name
a name that was never his
or ‘the father of my children’
And never again will he be mine.