"Bertha is not my name. You are trying to make me
into someone else, calling me by another name."
—Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
if there was one thing i could change
i would change
the way you
changed my name
my name you threw
so carelessly to the wind from
the tip of your tongue
for an English wife
you cannot have
for love that cannot live
and if you called me again i will
look to the ghost in the looking glass
and remember the Miller’s Daughter
and my red dress and the parrot
and you and you
who called me Bertha
but it is too late for
memories so let me
go away and dance
in my red dress,
let me go free
like a bird
into the flames
that will burn away
your wrath and
my existence to
bring you a new
chapter that
has come too late.
Tan Lixin has been writing since a very young age and has also won three awards at the Commonwealth Essay Competition. She was president of the ACJC's Creative Writing Circle She is featured on Obscured.sg as a writer and blogs at bone, lace where she has sold copies of her handmade poetry chapbook. She is the founder of Dear Wallflowers and The Phrenzy. Currently, she is working (with a friend) on a literary exhibition that will be held in December 2012. She has lived in Choa Chu Kang all her life and loves the stray cats in the neighbourhood. Lixin was part of the 2012 OF ZOOS Summer Workshop.