A Nigerian Husk

I do not see myself as a Nigerian man. I am a black american, shrouded with the green and white stripes from my homozygous Naija lineage.

to my sweet mom, I am guilty for believing that the “culture” I grew up in, was one I’d like to label as murky africanism

I am horrified at everything that Nigeria represents to me: the loud, eardrum shattering music played at weddings and birthdays, to the spicy food that would assault your taste buds before you could have any water to cease the pain, to the itchy clothing like the hat that never quite fit with my oddly-shaped head.

Even so, I am a representative of this very look I attempt to currently denounce (the name, the skin, the hair).

But, I do not see myself in this field, I am an outsider to a culture that has not done anything, but attempted to give me valuable structure to life.

I see others embracing this culture, as I only grow stronger in energy to escape its confusing chokehold especially when I get asked “Where are you from?”

As I choose to find the courage to foster ties to a colonial culture that will never be close to being one like my own

Maybe soon I can better assimilate to being Nigerian, but right now, I  cannot see how to flee this feeling of perpetually failing my heritage.