Her Name Was Blue - By Jasmine Naomi D. Villanueva

Written By: Jasmine Naomi D. Villanueva

Category: Creative Non-Fiction

Competition: Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026

Jasmine Naomi D. Villanueva's "Her Name Was Blue" is a poignant exploration of identity and belonging. As a participant in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026, Villanueva presents a narrative that delves into the complexities of familial expectations and personal identity. Through the lens of color, particularly the recurring theme of blue, the narrative navigates childhood memories and societal norms. This creative nonfiction piece invites readers to reflect on their own journeys of self-discovery and the influences that shape their identities.

About the Work

"Her Name Was Blue" captures a journey of self-identity through vivid imagery and introspective musings. The narrative is rich with emotional depth, exploring themes of familial expectations and personal growth. The mood is both reflective and critical, as it dissects the interplay between imposed identities and self-acceptance. Villanueva's use of color as a metaphor adds layers to the story, painting a vivid picture of a life colored by external perceptions and internal revelations.

Her Name Was Blue

Original Submission by Jasmine Naomi D. Villanueva

Her Name Was Blue

Jasmine Naomi D. Villanueva

Do you remember your favorite color?

Blue, you would have said. It had always been blue. As far as you remember.

As a toddler, you would have said it because your first memory would be you, lying on your back and being carried in the arms of family. Your bright eyes would be staring up at the vast morning sky overhead. You would have reached stubby little arms up in the air, and they would think you are reaching for them, but you can only see all that blue. Seemingly so close. Because when you are carried by arms you trust will not let go of you, the world seems so within reach. No matter how small you are. No matter how new you are to life.

You came to this world loving blue.

But did you know, Child of Blue Skies, that before you were even born, your favorite color had already been decided for you?

Before you came, four daughters had already been born to your father’s side of the family — two from your uncle, one as your sister, and another from your aunt. A boy comes next to your uncle once more — now he has two beautiful daughters and his pride and joy of a son.

You wonder if it was some sort of cruel joke that the last child your father had was you and the punchline was that your aunts would have sons of their own, as well. Eventually, there would be eight children in your generation. Three sons for three siblings, and none of them from your father, the eldest of them all.

None made it your fault, of course. None would be foolish enough.

But would children who did not know any better still be called fools? You remember your older sister and elder female cousins gathering around, talking about books and shows and music that you were never privy to. Just you. The last girl born into this family.

Do you remember? Looking up as they would crowd around, talking about stories you did not understand and never will.

“Masyado ka pa bata." (You're too young.)

"’Di ka kasama samin." (You're not one of us.)

"’Di mo gets." (You won't get it.)

It was always something you won't understand. You will find years later that you will never understand. That you are thankful you would never. That it was some unspoken rule that children picked up from adults. And while adults had the grace to hide it behind glances and sighs, it's funny how children could be so cruel.

You were too young back then, but did you open your eyes one day and wonder if your father had looked at his siblings with their blue-veined sons and looked at you — expecting to see blue, too? Has it ever occurred to him that there was none between sister and you to carry his name?

You must have. You must have when you grew up and wondered why your childhood was full of the man of steel clad in blue and red, or a giant robot with its blue-hilted sword, and yet your sister and elder cousins had their cute cartoons and blushing maiden dolls dressed in lace and frills.

Can you look at your father and say he does not see you and see blue?

Even as a child, you had already sinned. A blue baby book tells you that when you are older. By the time you realize that your sister had a pink one, you had already learned to stay silent. You had adored that little blue teddy bear on the cover, and yet now you wonder if it was ever meant for you.

They told you it was stupid to think that. They'd laugh like the worries of a daughter asking if she was a shred of the son they dreamt of was funny. They rolled their eyes like it was impossible for you to see that sometimes they look at you and expect a child they never had.

Your aunt from your mother's side had once joked that you were actually her daughter. You cried. You cried, Blue Teddybear. At the thought of growing up in lies. They thought it was funny. Of course they did. They thought the tears were funny. The idea that you were someone else's child. The tears from your fear. And then they reassured you that you are the son they will never have. Like it was comforting. Like it's a right. A gift you never deserved.

(Your aunt later has a son. Her only child. Another blue-veined child whose place you stood in once upon a time. The blue this time feels less like the blood burning through your veins and more a bitter taste in your mouth. Your cousins from your mother's side of the family did not treat you like some alien, the adults did not treat you with something like misplaced pity. But your eyes are tinted blue. You see that your mother's sister and brothers had blue children, too. Only your father. Only your mother.

You.)

"Pano nyo alam na anak nyo ko?" (How do you know I'm your child?)

They had laughed at your words back then. They most likely thought it was a question like “Where did babies come from?” They laughed as you were chased by sons around the living room table while your sister and elder cousins traded stories outside. You didn't think it was funny. Not your childish curiosity. Not your growing fear.

"Eh, sa akin ka nanggaling." (Well, you came from me.)

They say it like it's the most natural thing in the world.

Trees grew from the ground. The sky is blue. You came from your parents.

You don't say you feel like a dead son. Mourning someone you never were. Believing you're something you were never meant to be.

You don’t say “Minsan po feeling ko napalit ako sa hospital.” (Sometimes I feel like I got exchanged as a baby at the hospital.) You don’t say that it feels like the most natural thing in the world that you were never supposed to be here.

As a child, shame and frustration for you was not blushing cheeks or flushed faces. It was the blue of your slippers as you stared hard at the floor, wondering where you went wrong.

At one point, you still had that reckless stubbornness. Misplaced confidence that you could be more than what they wanted for you. Belief that they'd look at you and see you – not a blue teddy bear, blue veins, blue.

A part of you thought it was too late to color yourself in pinks and reds and wear your laces and frills and pretty skirts. But you tried. You tried your hardest. You wore cute pleated skirts when you could because they were pretty. Even when your closest friends – your older and younger cousins that felt more like brothers you never had – would laugh and say they didn’t suit you.

Do you remember, Little Blue in a Skirt, the way you stood before a mirror and thought you looked pretty for once? The way you were always called cute, never pretty, never beautiful – because those words didn’t quite work for your kind of blue.

You think you’re doing it. You’re you. Finally, finally, you. Reds and Pinks over the Blue they gave you. But then you wake up, and you’re blue again. Because you realize that they did not tell you to watch your weight the way they did your sister and older female cousins. They let you eat your fill the way they did to their sons, and they assured you you were just too young to be thinking about weight and you needed food to get stronger (Odd. Isn’t that what they told young boys in those movies you used to watch, too…?) You didn’t think about the shorter hairstyles, because you thought it was just for the hot weather. You don’t think about the loose shirts that hid your body.

And suddenly you feel like you put red lipstick over the blue lips of a corpse.

You stopped liking Red or Pink then. Stopped chasing it. Stopped craving it. Stopped expecting that it was always meant for you. You pretended to hate it.

“Ew, too girly,” you once said. And maybe you really did mean it back then. But a part of you remembers that time you stood before a mirror and called yourself pretty and suddenly it wasn’t “too” anything. It was only too much because you had nothing of it other than the parts you were born with.

You did not have those fashion magazines that taught young teenage girls to starve themselves, so you let yourself eat. Like it was normal. Like you weren’t trying to fill a hollow feeling in your stomach that has been there for as long as you realized how blue you were.

You wore black shirts, black pants, graphic tees with superheroes. You told them it was because “Kung naka-black ako, mas mukha akong payat” (If I wear black, I look slimmer.) You never told them it was because you couldn’t handle seeing yourself in blue, or red, or pink, or any other lighter color. You never told them you hated what those colors looked like when you looked at a mirror and saw how youth was slowly leaving you – your chest grows heavy, your waist more shapely – but still the blue clings. Black covered them well.

Time waits for no color, however. Soon you are older than when your sister and cousins first said you can’t join them for their stories, far too old to be running around with blue-veined cousins around tables and jumping on beds and playing with action figures.

An aunt from your father’s side is pregnant with a daughter.

And you are absolutely terrified for a girl you haven’t met yet.

You’re scared they’ll look at her and expect blue, too. That your sister and cousins would leave her out of their stories and giggling gossip and “adult” talk. That she would have to run around with your boy cousins who aren’t boys anymore, and your family would shake their heads that she had already failed when she was so new to this world.

So you promised yourself as your aunt lets you feel the baby kick that you would be there for her. You’ll look at her and see red or pink or whatever color she wants for herself. You’ll play with her, be it pink action figures or blue dolls. Whatever she wants.

You would be there for her.

But what you didn’t account for was the way the same cousins who had turned you away back then would have her over to paint her nails. Your sister would share with her stories and movies she was currently reading or watching, teach her music safe for a child to listen to. The adults would laugh and smile at her – fondly, not mockingly or pitifully – treating her like a little princess.

You weren’t jealous of her. Of course not. Jealous would mean you had it in the first place and wanted it back. And you were aware enough to know that it wasn’t her that was the problem. Envy, but not quite right, either. Your ire wasn’t aimed at her.

You found yourself in front of a mirror again, but no part of you could call yourself “pretty” in good faith. Not when your reflection showed an overweight girl who tucked her hair into beanies and berets to hide away from people who’d recognize her at the mall, who kept wearing black, black, black because it was the only thing that felt right.

“Pa’no ako? Bakit di ko nakuha ‘yun? Di ko ba deserve yung ganun?” (What about me? Why didn’t I get that? Didn’t I deserve it?)

But you did not hate her. You couldn’t bring yourself to. Had no reason to, either. Because for once, a red-veined daughter in your family had looked at you and thought what you had to say was better than what your older red-veined and blue-veined family had to offer. She loved the things you loved. Shared the things she loved, too. She did not look at you and expect to see a boy and was greatly disappointed, did not turn you away because you were born too late or too early and decided that you weren’t worth getting to know.

“Ayaw ko na ng pink.” (I don’t like the color pink anymore.)

You had blinked at her in surprise, wondering if she knew the way you seemed to see only color in the people in this house. Pink is – was – her favorite color, everyone in your family knew that. It was only now you were hearing she had decided differently at some point. “Ano na gusto mo ngayon ngarud?” (What do you like now then?)

She smiles, almost far too knowingly for a child so young. “Purple!”

Purple. A color made from red and blue for a red-veined cousin who sticks too close to a blue-veined daughter. You remember the way your eyes stung. You remember the way it felt harder to breathe, if only for a moment. How you had to swallow down something strangling your throat from the inside.

You smile at the Purple-veined Child. “Bagay sayo.” (It suits you.)

For once, home was a word that actually made sense because she was there. Just blue and purple. For now, that was enough.

Time passes even more and you are a young woman, or so they say. High school – Junior High School, maybe, but still – was when a child transitioned into adulthood through the grueling experience of their teenage years. You had watched your own sister and cousins all go through it. A part of you had forgiven them, to an extent, as you watched your sister leave home for work. A part of you had learned to let it go, as you watched your eldest male cousin – your older brother and first best friend – leave for another country.

You saw them change and wondered if you, too, would change somehow through these years. You don’t say out loud that you wonder if you’d still be blue by the time people simply referred to you as a “woman” and not simply a “young” one. So although rather terrified, you had stepped into classes with hope.

Summoning the almost reckless bravery you had back as a child, you asked the girl sitting beside you what her favorite color was.

“Blue!” She had said it so proudly, so assuredly. Like she had not looked at the color blue and only felt shame coursing through her. Like she had not held her baby book and wondered if it was really meant for her.

And that day, you decided blue was your favorite, too. Because if she had found herself in that color, then surely someone like you who was born from it would find it, too.

You never do. But you liked it here, or there, or wherever she was because you were with her and that was all that mattered. Because you had learned to look at others and not see what color they were supposed to be. Because you looked at a mirror in your uncomfortable body and loose clothes and called yourself “pretty” anyway because she taught you that.

Time runs. How many years have you been seeing the world with your friend who sees the world in shades of blue? 12? 13 years? You laugh. That was how old you were when you first met, and now you had been friends for as long as you were alive back then. You don’t know what the shape of life is supposed to look like without her in it now.

One day, she has a look on her face that feels as familiar as a certain purple-veined cousin who told you pink wasn’t her favorite color anymore.

“I’ve been about something for a while now. Hear me out, okay?”

You try to understand best you can, and she – they – do their best to explain. In the words you had always understood, your friend had realized they didn’t want to be any specific color. They had thought they hated pink and red, but they simply wished to be whatever they wanted whenever they wanted.

Huh, you thought. You didn’t know that was an option. To choose your color as you saw fit. But if it was possible for anyone, you believed it was for them.

Eventually, they – he – decides on something more. He was blue. And somehow, that made the most sense to you. Because red-veined as he was back then, he had always loved blue. In a way you couldn’t quite grasp, but he already knew without a doubt and simply needed to find a way to word it without your colors.

Time is a creature that knows no rest and you get older and older. Your eldest female cousin marries and has her own children

By the time your best friend had decided he was blue and every other color whenever he wanted, your cousin had two blue-veined sons of her own. Your first two nephews. As you play with them, you can’t help but think about your own generation.

Out of nine children in your generation, only three were born with blue-veins. And now, the generation following yours greets the first two of them, both of them blue. Your other married cousin was unable to conceive, so it was only them. You were convinced it would be just them for a long while, but when was time ever on someone’s side?

A part of you forgets that others of your family are growing up, too. Soon, the eldest son of your generation is married as well to a lovely wife. You don’t even think twice – she’s family to you the way he is. No color or blood in her veins changes that.

You had almost forgotten about that blue teddy bear on the cover of your babybook.

Almost.

You sit in front of an online call with your family as your elder male cousin — your first best friend, your only older brother — eventually announces the sex of their first born child. He had made a video for the gender reveal because you always knew he was always lovably dramatic.

There’s a pit on your stomach when you see a stuffed bear on screen wearing a diaper. He thought it would be funny if changing the bear’s diaper would be the big reveal. Again, dramatic. Again, a sinking feeling in your stomach that never goes away. That will never go away, you think.

Huh, you think. Blue really was your favorite color.

A part of you couldn’t help but pray she was blue, too.

About the Competition

The Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 by Hashtag Kalakar is a prestigious platform celebrating the artistry of poets and writers worldwide. This competition showcases diverse voices and innovative narratives, fostering a global community of creatives. Participants engage in a rich tapestry of storytelling, contributing to a tradition of literary excellence and cultural exchange. The competition continues to inspire and uplift, providing a stage for both emerging and established writers to share their unique perspectives.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to Jasmine Naomi D. Villanueva for her participation in the Global Poetry and Creative Writing Competition 2026 with her evocative piece, "Her Name Was Blue." Villanueva's work stands as a testament to the power of narrative in exploring complex themes of identity and belonging. Her contribution enriches the tapestry of voices that make this competition a beacon for creative expression.

About Hashtag Kalakar

Hashtag Kalakar is a creative platform dedicated to providing artists, writers, singers and other creative talents with opportunities to showcase their work and reach wider audiences through competitions, features and creative initiatives.