i will return home to five graves
with a foreign accent
i will kneel and greet each of them
waiting for them to bless me
i will return home to five graves
sitting where i was once
just a little girl
i will imagine her dancing to welcome me
offering me roasted yam and peppered palm oil
i will remember their smiles
she will remember me
even with my foreign accent
she will still speak Igbo
but
i will return home to five graves
to ancestors who held me as a baby
telling me who i was once in my former life
but
i will return home to five graves
with a foreign accent
where Obianuju means
she came in abundance
i will return home
as half eaten love poems
never a foreigner
always the daughter of her people.
- Ijeoma Umebinyuo (via theijeoma)