NaPoWriMo 2026 – Day 21/30

It started with a Charlie, girl
You will not be a fly on the wall
Take those wings to the summer sky
Wrap your dreams around the world.

Little red wellies made Chuggles
Daddy’s lifelong partner in crime
Watching from the country garden
Cycling through Surrey’s autumn hills.

The seasons turned and so did Chum
A dog food brand, a word for friend
My little brother named me once
And either way, I loved the sound.

The land down under gave me Chaz
Where it is too hot for syllables
And cultural expectations
It felt very early-noughties cool.

Graduation christened me Charles
Pulling me back toward the patriarchy
Having to prove my own first name
Those small corrections left their scars.

Today the Teams chat calls me CA
An office joke between colleagues
Who speak in acronyms all day
A little goodbye: see ya, CA.

But what began as sibling teasing
Became the name my people use
The one that stayed, the one that softened
I will always be, Always Chum.