Not a disappearance act | Sreedhari Desai

not a disappearance act

the diplomas don’t argue.
they just hang there
like clean alibis…
inked in the name
i dragged through finals,
through cheap coffee and bad roommates,
through that one professor
who said “maybe you’re not cut out for this”
and i said nothing
and kept showing up.

that name is on my email,
my byline,
my tiny digital billboard
where i post pictures of my sketches
and pretend i don’t care
who watches.

then comes love…
which is never just love.
it’s paperwork.
it’s forms that ask you
to pick a box
like you’re choosing a side
in a war you didn’t start.

they smile when they ask it, too.
like it’s a ribbon they’re handing you.
are you taking his last name?
as if marriage is a store
and the shared surname is the receipt.

and i get it…
i really do.
there’s something sweet
about matching.
like wearing the same scruffy jacket
and calling it a home.

a shared name
is a small fist of belonging.
it says we’re a unit
to waiters and landlords
and the distant cousin
who only likes you
if you look official.

but my name…
my original name…
desai…
isn’t a maiden thing
like a flower in a jar
waiting to be claimed.
it’s my mouth.
it’s my history.
it’s the sound i learned to answer to
before i learned what love costs.

and his name…
god, it’s a good name.
solid.
respectable.
a name that looks right
on an envelope.
a name that could make strangers
treat me like i’m
less interruptible.

sometimes i want it
the way you want a new city
when you’re tired of your own streets.
sometimes i want to wear it
like a warm coat
and walk into rooms
as “we,”
not “me + explanation.”

but then i picture it…
the slow erasing.
the degrees still mine
but the signature different.
the handle changed.
the search results split in two
like a divorce
before the marriage even starts.

and i think:
how strange
that the proof i existed
must be reissued
to prove i still exist.

they call it tradition
as if tradition
ever asked permission.
as if the old rules
didn’t come from old hands
counting women
like inventory.

and maybe i’m dramatic.
maybe it’s just letters.
maybe i’m clinging
to a word
like it’s a raft.

but names are not nothing.
names are how the world
finds you
and keeps you
and sometimes loses you
on purpose.

i don’t want to make my love
a disappearance act.
i want a marriage
that doesn’t require me
to shrink into it
to prove it’s real.

i want him to want me…
not as his extension,
not as his matching set,
but as the whole loud thing
i already am.

so maybe we do it
a few ways.
maybe i keep my name
and we share everything else…
the dishes,
the bills,
the dumb arguments
about whose turn it is
to change the toilet paper.

maybe i take his name
and keep mine
like a second heartbeat…
not a compromise,
a record.

maybe he takes mine,
and we watch the world
trip over its own assumptions
and learn something.
maybe we invent a new one.
a last name
built out of two stories
and stubborn hope.

or maybe the truest thing
is this:
a marriage isn’t incomplete
without a shared last name.
it’s incomplete
without the shared understanding
that nobody gets erased
just to make the picture
look tidy.

and when they ask me…
at the bank,
at the dentist,
at the bright little counter
where they slide forms at you
like fate…
i want to say:

i will share a bed,
a life,
a future,
a grief,
a thousand ordinary mornings.
but i will not hand over my name
like a passport.

i will not mistake love
for surrender.
i will not call it romance
when it’s really
just the world
asking women
to keep doing
what the world
has always asked.

i can belong
without being renamed.
i can be “we”
without losing
the “me”
that got us here.