the failings of a surgically healed heart | a collection

3 | on feeling foreign in a family of foreigners

i am not my parents daughter

nor am i the sister of my siblings

translation:

i am not nigerian

nor am i british;

but am somewhere in-between.

wear my dark skin like an imposter

(accidental black-face)

my accent no longer nigerian;

but ambiguous, still:

sometimes american.
sometimes dundonian.
sometimes english.

never where i am from –

(where am i from?)

my humour so dry at times,

as if i haven't drank water for days.

still, no one laughs.

not my parents.

not my siblings.

my parents do not understand;

my siblings say i'm not funny.

i try too hard

i come across inauthentic*

(like putting on accent?)

the only place i ever felt at home

was in london

here no asked me:

where are you originally from?

translation:

where did get that skin of yours tinged that lovely hue of dirt?

in london,

i braided my hair all the time

and my mama didn't need to go bankrupt;

in london,

i discovered indomie

and have been addicted to them ever since

the capital: a revelation, of sorts.

to be the daughter of immigrant parents

from a country you have yet to visit

and know via the second-hand accounts of unreliable aunts and uncles

and sensationalised headlines

does not mean,
there is not a home for you –

anywhere

a dilemma my siblings never faced

for they have never been from anywhere other than here;

for my parents, the opposite; home was oceans away

meanwhile, i thought:

i could not claim both identities/so claimed neither

and found myself
stranded at sea

- so where am i originally from, you ask? first and foremost, i am from my parents, two souls composed of the earths soil, who carried me with them, planted me here and let me grow