tiwaladeoluwa adekunle
you tell me go back
to your country
Like it was your idea first this soft chorus
my body knows by heart
I have travelled the earth counterclockwise barefoot
a thing plucked
in search of another house with windows
rooms that know my name
go back to your country
but my body said it first
after I forgot
how to wear ankara without feeling like a painting
on a white wall
the last time I said my name without say that again
split it let me see
after I heard
brittany say my hair had been conquered by conditioner a compliment
conquered broken
in half like history
go back to your country
sometimes I think I have
and then I wake up to the piercing breeze in my body
the bruise of all the years of trying
to retrieve from the balled fist that is America
a golden coin
Tiwaladeoluwa Adekunle is a writer and Purdue University graduate student from southwestern Nigeria. Some of her poems are published or forthcoming in Indiana Review, 2017 Best "New" African Poets anthology, and Oakland Review. She was selected as a scholarship recipient for the New York State Summer Writers Institute in 2016, and was also honored to win the 2017 Flo Gault Student poetry prize.
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