My name means Higher in Excellence, The USA had a president named Jackson, My name has ties to major religions. My name is an endless reminder of what I have to live up to. A forever note on my back reminding me that no matter what I will have to fight harder and longer for my goals than most.

To me my name is musty, found carved in a plate of wood in an attic by a jarful of ash, it is a name that has lost all meaning long ago, a name that if it were to be brought into sunlight would burn to ash.

My name is a void, a name that smells of 3rd generation hand-me-downs, a burden passed down from generation to generation expecting not one of us to break and fall.

My name is a puddle, A stain, something to be washed away and forgotten; although it will never be forgotten, a reminder of all the times I have failed, the times I could not come through, the times I quit because it was too much. 

I got my name from my great grandfather, a man I never met and had never been told much about him, “he is a good man”, “he was a kind man”, they say reminding me just how little I knew of him. I wonder what pain he went through, was it all because of the different times, or has nothing changed, has this name been an endless scourge on its host?

 A parasite that sucks the emotional fortitude of the person it inhabits. An endless reminder of the loneliness, the pain, and the danger of every day. The fear that if I give up for even a moment that I will crumble and fall like a castle held together with floss and toothpicks.

I am a clay pot and this name is the 2-ton weight about to drop on me. Saying the name is like regurgitating a spike ball covered in hot sauce, it is the thing drowning you; making sure you have no breath left to get out another word.

I wish any other name would fit, but Jackson has carved itself into my skin; making clear to the world of my life and what it has to hold. It makes every other name sound like a monkey bar a child is too short to reach, a cookie jar on the top shelf. My name is the endless smell of a smoker's damp leather jacket, breaking through every wall and wash to make itself known.

My name is my weakness, my loss, my depression, my pain. But every moment I spend away from my salty lover of a name, the more I feel homesick. My name is my past, my friends, and my future, a shining light at the end of the tunnel, but for now, I am left endlessly running away from my name.