Transcription by Ejiro Elizabeth Edward

Transcription

Do you know how difficult it is to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair? ....pass the burning torsos erected on poles like flag?
                                 warsan shire.

You are Nigerian /until you are not/, until a man /cuts down your father/ and rapes your mother/ till death /do her apart/,

you /are an orphan/ and you learn to say the /lords  prayer/ in Yoruba far from your /home land /and then you are /nothing / a girl  whose thumb is as small as a baby points at the /tribal mark/ on your cheek, she swears you are Yoruba, yes you are,

/no /

you are not sure until your /uncle comes to claim you from the refugee camp/. Your uncle is /Ibo/ and his wife has the skin of a/ flaked/ god And like all foreign gods, she too leaves for her snow flaked country with you along, so you are/ Nigerian/ all over again, until you are at the /border /and the immigrant officer questions your identity and some how shows you a country with a /map/ of /half a yellow sun/, your mother is/ Ibo /the flaked god aunt asserts, you pass the border and you don't remember what's stamped on your visa, you are too young until /you are not too young/, until you get /fucked / by a guy who ponders too much about your/ black skin /and now you are /colored/ , and you tell colored/ girls story/ and write poems on/ broken bottles /then you are a /northerner /all over again when your teacher asks you to compose about yourself until they force you to remember why you carry your hair in Afro then you become African and you remember you have a visa, you bring out your visa and find out you have no/ identity/, you are nothing/.

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 Ejiro Elizabeth Edward is a poet/writer and passionate lover of the art. She has been published in pangolin review,  Praxis magazine, Kalahari Review, and a regular contributor in the and afri-diaspora and recently redefining herself seeing that writing /the art is probably her only way of living while she battles with the writers syndrome of depression or insomnia. She spends her free time reading, modeling and traveling . Currently an undergraduate of the University of Benin. She resides in Nigeria. She is on Instagram as Diasporapoetry, and on Facebook as Ejiro Edward, also on Twitter as ejiro Edward 552

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