to me/ daughter of igbo parents
nigeria exists in theory/ not in practice.
a fictional reality/ a place i've learnt second-hand:
from the accounts strangers/ (extended) family alike,
a country reported to me by the news/ retold to me by my mama with childhood fables and folktales she grew up with.
a land too out of reach to ever truly be mine/ a not-quite-home
just somewhere to call that when it's easy/ a place i use to explain away:
my blackness.
my anger.
my impatience.
(and every other negative aspect about myself)
nigeria is a scapegoat/ a fabrication and cultivation of what western journalists told me it was.
it does not belong to me/ but sometimes i want it to
sometimes i want it to mean to me/ what it does to my parents.
but alas, it does not.
- i am born from parents born from a land, i care nothing about
--
decided I'd up the schedule to two poems a week. you are welcome.
YOU ARE READING
the failings of a surgically healed heart | a collection
Poetry「 WATTYS 2019 WINNER 」 the failings of a surgically healed heart, is a series of autobiographical poems arranged into six thematic parts to form a collection which examines the idea of the collective and how that informs individual. i. family an exp...
