My tongue battles with grammar.
vowels itch and consonants bring pain.
The power of syntax is cultural & a boy wrestles with language.
At dawn, ilé is home. By dusk, ilè is soil –
Same spelling, different interpretations:
sorrow and joy – interchangeable
mockery and cheer – serving the same purpose.
Friends often say: Joel ń sọ Yorùbá bíi ọmọ Ìgbọ̀
but fail to learn that growing away from ancestry is
carrying strange communication on your lips –
how I say ẹkáàbọ̀ while stuttering,
ódààbọ̀ with amateur accent.
I, sentence of beautiful disaster.
I, impotent perfection. Doubting every phrase I spit.
I walk into a shop of natives and
the shop walks out of me.
How do I own home in another man’s tongue?
Is this another nemesis of colonization?
Am I another failed descendant of odùduwà?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Sergey Vinogradov on Unsplash