Books

How else would you know I am Nigerian if you never catch me praying?

The ocean regurgitated me in the obodo- oyinbo, and I gulped every verse in Psalm 135. When the officer returned my passport, she shook her head as if I did not know that I had just become a sceptre contorted into a sickle, so I gulped a glass of Psalm 91. At King’s Cross, I learnt from the beehive that London was a lot like King Solomon, so I downed a glass of Psalm 25 because I did not want to become Solomon’s youngest concubine whose turn never reached to taste of the king’s gonads.While on the bus, the driver delivered a sermon about how the seatbelt owned 100 % of my life, so I gulped a glass of Psalm 23. As he made his way through the surgically thin roads, as the country sights wafted into my mind, I slowly sipped a bottle of Psalm 121. No sooner had I arrived at my new home, my oyinbo home, than I drank a thousand litres of Psalm 95. That night, I fell on my bed the same way Psalm 145 falls on a tired heart.

Bandages

My grandfather did to wounds what Achebe did to words. As soon as he heard that my Bini-flavoured-English had been punctured by shame, he placed an album of tongues in a medicine bag and dove into the ocean. After the officer stamped his passport, he shook the man’s hand because a handshake is an alternative way of telling another that you are not grovelling. When he arrived at my house, he sat me down, pulled out the album of tongues from his medicine bag, and made me gaze at it for the rest of my life. There was Aunty Okonjo’s tongue and the way its Igboness made the page shimmer like sapphire. Uncle Wole’s tongue and how its Yorubaness made the page shimmer like emerald. By the time we had flipped to the page where the Igbo in Aunty Chimamanda’s tongue glistened like rubies, I did not know when a tear dropped on my thighs. Now, if you were ever fortunate to meet my grandfather, this is what he would tell you, it was not a tear that dropped on his thighs; it was a chain!

Touch

But for grace, we all touch the world the same way we have been touched. If you’ve been touched roughly, you would touch others roughly. If you’ve been touched tenderly, you would touch others tenderly. If you’ve been touched kindly, you would touch others kindly. If you’ve been touched selfishly, you would touch others selfishly. If you’ve been touched compassionately, you would touch others compassionately. If you’ve been touched cynically, you would touch others cynically. If you’ve been touched lovingly, you would touch others lovingly.

Bo-ul

Let us place a wreath on the head of every Nigerian. On Iyekepolor and Chinyere. On Folake and Adamu. Let us massage the shoulders of their accents when their tongues hurt from the betrayal that happens whenever they caramelise tr into chr, so that trouser caramelises into chrouser, trust caramelises into chrust, trim caramelises into chrim, and try caramelises into chry. Who knows, one of these days, Iyekepolor, Chinyere, Folake and Adamu, would embrace the reality of how there is no difference between their tongue and Liam’s London tongue that cannot help caramelising bottle into bo-ul even if his life depended on it!

Serendipity

Every time I open the doors of my tongue and watch Bini run into the field, holding English’s hand, completely oblivious of the battle in my tongue, my eyes mist up. I watch the two of them, two little children quarrelling in one minute and tickling each other’s ribs in the next. I watch the two lads conjure a football out of thin air, kick it into the gaps between trees—homespun goalposts. I watch as Bini teaches English goalkeeping, and I watch as English teaches Bini how to dribble. I watch English wash Bini’s foot with water when he bruises it, and I watch Bini share his lunch with English, votively. Now, the truth is, I watch them from a distance and sob, tenderly, because no matter how hard I try, their serendipitous brotherhood would always remind me that English is that adopted child whom I must learn to love as much as the biological child if I want the battle in my tongue to cease.

The Photographs (I)

You are water, and like all water, you would depend on thirst to be loved. Year after year, you would long to hear the mention of your name, Water, when people speak of their favourite drinks. But tell me, who craves for water when there is Moet? Year after year, you would secretly envy everyone who tastes like wine until God sneaks into your misery. And because God’s throat knows how to respect thirst, God would drink of you long after his thirst has been quenched and you would finally know that even ordinariness is beautiful.

The Photographs (II)

For your sake your God, who has never flicked a finger at a fly, he would force arsenic down the throat of fear, he would handcuff sorrow and make him a lifer, he would throw hurt into a hole of molten magma, he would push sadness down a cliff, he would invite anguish for a swim in a pool full of crocodiles. Your God would come back home with a sword clothed in blood on one hand, and the head of all your worries dangling in the other hand. You would see the red drip from where the sword met with the neck of despair and for the first me in your life the only fear you would ever have would be the fear of your God. So that when he goes into the bathroom to wash the sweat of battle from his body, you would dash into the bedroom and change the white sheets into something close to liquid passion. Red.