Questions for Ada

by Ijeoma Umebinyuo

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

one day, salt found water and just would not let go. - Ocean

He said, “You are beautiful.” I told him “beautiful” is a lazy and lousy way to describe me.

At the embassy, they never warned us about days America will feel so lonely we will gather our mother tongue, hastily swallowing words that remind us of home to keep warm

America, while you were asleep another woman mourned her dead black lover’s bullet-ridden body, as his baby cried for her father’s life.

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

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

Diaspora blues So, here you are too foreign for home too foreign for here. Never enough for both.

You asked your father how you should say your name. He said if they cannot say your name then they must try, but you will not soften it, you will not break the magic apart, you will not be ashamed of it.

I watch you gather your memories like firewood, warming yourself for yet another lonely night.

darling, just because you ignore a star does not mean it stops shining. even on you.