PARADOX
Scene 1:
I was raised with two contradictions.
I could be both anything on my own
and nothing without a man.
a post-colonial child
I enjoyed the deliciousness of living in the country that was now mine,
ours.
A country with people who looked like me
leading
having pried the keys of the Kingdom
from its Imperial Masters.
Scene 2:
Growing up a girl there seemed to be cultural tests I needed to pass.
I had no idea what I should be studying.
Scene 3:
I have always been an immigrant.
Othered.
Even in my own land
What does Motherland even really mean?
Is it 1st soil?
I learned mother tongue
from my mother’s tongue
took me back home
during the war
front-row seat to a revolution.
At night
I would hear the thud of soldier’s gumboots
at my grandmother’s farm.
Gunshot sounds like 4th July fireworks
I would experience decades later in Boston.
Scene 4:
I never really knew my parents together.
I was too young when they broke ranks.
They have each offered me bits and pieces of their history
a jigsaw of sorts.
I am guessing they must have loved each other.
no one talks about love in my culture.
Perhaps love is a western construct
And for us “ Good Africans”
we have something deeper,
unnamed,
a necessary tolerance
so the tribe can grow
an heir can be born.
But I wasn’t an heir.
Scene 5:
I was told often by aunties I wasn’t sure were related to me
that I should eat my books,
swallow my pride
make sure to eat
because no one marries a skinny girl.
I was taught to cook sadza on the fire
in the thatched hut at Mbuya’s house
I hated the sting of soot in my eyes
or how my cousins had a firmer grip on the wooden stick when cooking.
make love without touching
mother without giving birth
feed a nation without dirtying your hands
you gotta keep supple for a man to choose you
God only loves clean women
wash out village ideas in the river
oil skin daily
wash your hair with herbs
be sweet like mangoes
speak and be silent
on your knees
be intelligent
but not too brilliant
to block out a man’s sun-rays
Scene 6:
I insisted on living LOUDLY
Came back to America when I grew up
Found my own earth
chose for MYSELF
in whose arms I could crumble
and still be Queen
his hands balme
fighting demons that circle our feet
strong like Olumo rock
he carries Yoruba warrior blood
in his veins
skin soiled by different suns
it’s been 96,360 hours we have been together
I still smile
say YES
a million times
when he asks me
in the morning.
