NaPoWriMo Catch-up 3: Papers

You tell me this
is just a piece of paper;
you tell me this
is just a credit card:
but you are wrong. 

These things are charms:
talismanic sigils signifying
my right to define
my sex, my life, myself,
because

there's power in words,
as all magicians know,
and these letters say 
the papers would be lying
if they ever used my dead name
to invoke me,

and we know what happens
if you read dead names. 
This is a deed poll and a bus pass;
debit, credit and library cards;
two pamphlets, an album,
a Facebook page, an 'at' sign
followed by the words AnathemaJane;

this is all the magic I need in the world:
this is how I choose to spell my name.

*  *  *

My third piece for NaPoWriMo this year, and my first venture a little off-prompt: the prompt being to write a four-line rhyming charm. I wound up writing this instead, about the magic of pieces of paper in helping us define our identities: something much on my mind, as at the same time I was writing this article for SoSoGay on Equal Marriage.