Home Soil

In a world where we are constantly evolving

Constantly changing

Shifting with the Earth movements

We are moving to define ourselves with each moment that passes

Me? I don’t just love being Black.

I love being Nigerian.

I love Being African

I love an African Woman

I love that I get to learn about my own culture I love that our culture is endless.

Looking back at the past and seeing how we consistently rise

even when it seems like the world is determined to sit on us until we yield,

Africa is Perseverance.

So many of us are here right now because we know what our truth is.

Our people have instilled in us how to take our own happiness.

If someone tries to take you down, you grab hold and let them know

you don’t know what giving up is.

Africa is strength.

When I remember the very first time I stepped out onto my homeland Nigeria.

I felt a sense of calm

a happiness I had never felt before.

I felt the energy of a people who will never say die. My people.

I felt the heartache of our people who were forced to leave to survive.

I applaud our people that had the courage to fly through their own skies

I cried the tears of the ones who were taken, the ones who have never seen it

and I hurt for the ones who will never see it again.

I took in the lands I felt the humid air

That liberated my soul

I felt the energy of our people still there. I felt home.

I grew up moving from house to house

Jealous of the kids who could find family history in theirs

Being able to draw a string to different areas

Where their great –great grandparents built their legacies.

Then I think of my parents who had to leave home due to their fears.

Leaving their place of comfort due becoming colonial collateral damage

Sometimes leaving the place you love the most is the only solution that you can manage.

And so when I say that I am Nigerian, I carry a piece of their home with me.

Never ashamed of my identity – of our legacy

Music that will never fail to make you move

Food so delicious you feel like you could never fee full,

Clothing so vibrant that whenever I wear I feel like I am reborn.

The jollof reaching your lungs making your tastebuds dance Recipes passed down from our grandmothers

Who not all of us got to know.

But I know we are in their hearts

We are their hope- Which can be a heavy think to carry on your back- I know.

So stand tall, search for your own joy

Your identity is something you don’t have to let the world destroy

We will not be defined by struggle but success

When someone underestimates us, it only makes us more determined to thrive.

Home can mean so many things

You place your life there surrounded by things that bring back memories that make you smile.

Home can also be the place where your soul is grounded

Your family is synonymous with the earth

A place that you will always be connected to by spirit.

There is something calling to me

Something I can't touch

No matter my "Nationality"

No matter where I move

There is a home that I will never be able to deny.

My ancestry, my roots that were planted carrying

The blood in my veins

That creates my eyes, my bones, my hair, my taste

This place so many call home A place I should call home because of a passport

A privilege given to me by a piece of paper

Somehow this land will never sit right with me

Canada is Its own confused persona

A place I’m supposed to call home because of a passport 
A stolen privilege given to me by a piece of paper.

This country will never sit right with me 
Canada is its own confused persona 

Comparing itself to it’s southern cousin when it’s agenda is just hidden a little bit better
When the governor gave me my certificate and said " Welcome Home"

I felt no joy only relief- Now my family and I can family breathe. 

There are people here I love 
But when I think of home 
It is not here and I cannot pretend 

That I don’t sleep on the bones of people whose children ceased to breathe

when those fireworks go off on the first of July and the burnt ambers find their way to the ground

It will just be another reminder of the light they did not grow up to see

I cannot pretend that it is here where I feel safest

When I don’t know if I am human or Black first

I know its not here where I can say I am fully accepted

I know it is here where I feel the most different

Where I had to re-learn that I was beautiful

Here, where I feel the most out of place

Because “Multicultural” is just a label to save face

there are still too many spaces where I find myself making myself smaller to fit in with a status quo that would rather I comply, be grateful, be still.

When I look at myself in the mirror

And I see everything I love about myself

Canada has no claim to any piece.

My laugh, my smile, my eyes, my heart, my soul, my pride, my skin

If you ask me who I am 
I won’t say Canadian 
and I never will.