the name

my name, faria, means smiles and roses, one meaning coming from arabic and the other from farsi.

my name is wrought from two different worlds. it rolls off of two tongues the same way but renders different meaning to each. to one i should be a flood of happiness, to the other, a sweet smell, a soft composition.  this split, the way i know the cradle of both tongues but belong to neither, reminds me of how i've seen too many places to remember my own, how my soul is split into every culture; how i want to know the tongues of every language, the skin of every country. it reminds me of how i belong to the world, yet no country can house me.

my name makes me wonder if i there is some gentle faria hidden within me. do i, like gifted roses, breed love in another's heart? does someone admire me as they swoon over a bouquet of roses? do i console one's tear-swollen eyes just as rose-water does?

when i think of these questions, i don't believe in my name. i become afraid that it captures the way i love people, but never how i push them away. when i am vile, when i deter someone who bent down to pick me up in one sharp prick, i worry i have overstepped my name's boundaries. it is at times like this, when i doubt my very nature, that i have to remind myself of what a versatile name my mom gifted me. it is then that i remember even roses have thorns.