DC, The Cat With Many Names
He didn’t come from a shelter
or a cardboard box on someone’s porch.
He came out of the engine of my mother’s truck,
shaking, soot-smudged,
a tiny heartbeat pulled out of a place
no living thing should survive.
I remember holding him—
small, trembling, impossibly warm—
and before I could even think of a name,
my dad looked at him,
looked at me,
and said,
“Call him DC.”
And somehow it fit.
But DC was only the beginning.
Some days he’s Damn Cat,
when he climbs where he shouldn’t
and looks me dead in the eye
as he knocks something over.
Some days he’s Dumb Cat,
when he forgets how doors work
or gets lost in a sunbeam
like it’s the first one he’s ever seen.
Some nights he’s Devil Cat,
all claws and chaos,
running wild like he still remembers
the roar of that engine
and refuses to ever be small again.
But then—
in the quiet moments,
when he curls into my lap
and presses his face into my hand
like he’s choosing me all over again—
he’s just DC,
the name my dad gave him,
the kitten who survived,
the kitten who stayed,
the kitten who turned one terrifying moment
into a story we’ll tell forever.
He has many names,
but every one of them
means he’s mine.
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