A Love Letter to The Girls Like Me

To the girls like me who switch their hips, smack their lips and run loving fingers all over their body, claiming their own bodies.

To the girls who dance wildly throwing reckless abandon to the wind begging their once shy inner child to have no fear, you CAN move now!

To the girls like me who love too hard, give too much, and never get enough.

To the girls with hearts as wide as the sea that part where they call home, told to keep their knees pressed together and end up with their legs tied by the culture that indoctrinates so well they forget who they are.

To the girls looking for who they are. Searching to fill the nagging hole and gaping feeling that more is out there, within them, around them, them.

To the girls like me who speak too softly, cry too often, yet their voices land like crashing cymbals when the fire that burns within them is awakened.

To the girls who are too loud and never enough. Too visible, they fight to be seen.

To the girls never satisfied, the girls always hungry, the ones the world craves, chews up but cannot swallow.

To the girls whose flavors confuse the senses of the ordinary, who others cry a river, leaving them to wipe their own solitary drop with the fabric of woven dreams deferred.

To the girls like me who stand tall when their feet waver, the girls whose arms give the warmest embrace to the girls with aching heads and sagging breasts seeking the safety of sistership.

To all the girls like me. . . I see you.

I love you.

Maa mi

My Dearest Mother,

Happy Birthday to you! I don’t want to admit you’re gone. I’m very well still in denial. I speak of you in present terms often. I started this letter with “. . .you’re turning a whole 70!” then I realized, “you would have . . .” is what I should have said.

How is the ancestral world? Is there a party? King Sunny Ade is still here with us mortals otherwise I’m sure he would have played you a song over there.

Remember that time we made THE BEST seafood spaghetti the world never tasted? It was just me and you in the house, everyone else was at boarding school. You must have been paid or had some great news that day because your mood was best described as ecstatic! There was crabs, full whole crabs not just legs, there was dried shrimp, fresh shrimp, titus too I think, and all kinds of peppers and onions. We cooked together, talking about who knows what, but I remember excitement. NEPA had taken light as usual, but it didn’t even matter because there was something intimate about that day that eating at the dining table with a lantern couldn’t dampen. That was our moment.

That memory came out of nowhere and has been with me all week. I haven’t tapped into it like I have other memories. That’s what I do now, I choose our best memories together. Not the ones where I’m guilt ridden for not talking to you more often. Not the ones I’m angry at you for not understanding me. Not the ones I’m angry at myself for not understanding YOU. It’s a cycle of guilt and regret I try to avoid and hide away from via the best of memories of us.

I wish we had more time. A lot of mother-daughters go through this mother-daughter rough patch. Especially when they’re so much alike and yet so different. I only wish we had more time to get over our own rough patch. You would be so proud of me now. I’ve grown! In so many ways. I’m not as skinny as before, I’ve filled in nicely. You would make fun of how I’m no longer “number 11” or a “giraffe” anymore, I’m sure. I’m more mature now too. My spirit has grown. I’m sure of myself, what I want, and saying “no” to bullies. You won’t agree with some of my ways, but you would be proud. I’m sure of it. And all the things I can afford now?! I mean, I’m not balling yet, but Mommy, your bag and shoe game would have been “O lekú, ìjà òrè!” like you always say. What does “Ìjà òrè” even mean? You always had a way with words and the most unique sayings.

I wish we had more time. There’s so much I want to learn about you. Maybe I’m just trying to find myself through you but where else will I turn to if not to the woman who gave me life. I miss you. I need you. And I’m sorry. For being young. For not knowing how fickle life is.

It is your birthday today. A whole 70. I had several ways in mind with which to celebrate you. I don’t know if I will have the strength to, but I will try. Just in case I don’t, know that on your birthday last year I was in a church in Costa Rica. Yes! Me, I was in a whole church and the walls didn’t come crashing down. I prayed for you. I cried for you. I wished you peace. And myself, forgiveness. I knew you’d like that, the church was pretty too.

Happy Birthday, Mommy. I’m sure you’re singing loudly, off-key, carefree, turning the ancestral plane inside out in celebration.

Love,

Your Àbígbèyìn Eledùmarè

Leave Empty

Leave empty

Take nothing with you

You were promised not a thing

Don’t be selfish. Share

Your gifts are your gifts

To the world, who have nothing

Like you.

she dreams in colour.

I dream in colour.

Shades of blue and green and white and pink surround me.

I see through rose colored lens and I speak in circles.

I sing my thoughts in squares and triangles with sharp edges that pierce my gray skies.

I feel in oakwood and cherry reds, and I love in the brightest of yellows.

Once Upon a Rose

I was once a rose until my petals fell off.
I was once a bird until I clipped my own wings.
I was once a child and then I grew up too fast.
I was once the wind until my ship sailed away.

I was once a girl until you told me to “man up”.
I was once the choir until I ran out of words to sing.
I was once like light, light as air until I was burdened with my sadness.
I was once alive until I was content in my slumber.

I was once a painting until I became a reflection.
I was once the truth until the lies overtook me.
I was once a saint until I woke up from my dreams.
I was once a queen until I gave up my throne.

I was once your air until I made you choke.
I was once your ‘me’, until I could be ‘me’ no more.
I was once a rose until my petals fell off.
You once loved me, until my thorns made you bleed.

Beautiful.

He calls me beautiful

I laugh

He says I’m his protagonist

Nothing

Little does he know

I gain a feather each time his words caress my wings