Questions for Ada

by Ijeoma Umebinyuo

do not bend yourself, do not shift your tongue for anyone.

but, remember your daughter was fourteen and you begged her and you begged her to learn the language of silence.

I have always wondered how women who carry war inside their bones still grow flowers between their teeth.

Nobody warned you that the women whose feet you cut from running would give birth to daughters with wings.

Bless the daughters who were given the role of motherhood before they became women. Bless the daughters who raised themselves.

I keep finding my mother in parts of me I never knew existed.

I am too full of life to be half-loved.

It seems there are still women I have to become to understand the woman I was.

You do not notice how no one has ever asked for you to spell your name See how shamelessly you have forgotten whose breasts nourished you.

Forgive your mother for all the miracles she couldn’t perform.

Teach yourself never to join the parade of souls who think picking themselves apart will make them a bit more lovable.

Teach yourself to leave wherever you are tolerated.

you are not alive to please the aesthetic of colonized eye.

You lost cultures You lost language You lost religions You lost it all in the fire that is colonization So, do not apologize for owning every piece of you they could not take, break, and claim as theirs.

Do not let the distance break your heart.