Adétòkunbọ̀

Are we destined to live up to our names?

Adétòkunbọ̀

‘The crown has returned from abroad’ 

A blessing of restitution

Bearing the burden of responsibility  

I’ve found myself asking,

How can I return to somewhere 

I was never present in the first place?

And if I wear the crown

Can I serve with integrity 

When my head has been moulded by abroad?

I look at my family back home  

And realise we’ve been 

Separated by the lottery of birth 

I’ve found myself asking 

Who’s really won the jackpot?

The material wealth of the metropole?

Or the spiritual grounding of the motherland? 

What does it profit a man 

if he gains the world 

and loses his soul?

But does it profit a man

If his spirit is at home

But there’s no light to locate it?

What I do know 

Is that it’s hard to find home 

In a place where

harmless gathering becomes

threatening loitering 

When your complexion is too dark 

It’s hard to feel at home 

In streets and buildings 

Venerating the names 

Of individuals who would consider you 

Their property

It’s hard to feel at home 

In a place which 

celebrates your victories as theirs 

But your shortcomings as yours 

I feel myself drawn to a place 

I can truly call mine

Where I can tread the land

That generations before me have cultivated 

Where my history is embedded 

Into the roads I walk, the buildings I enter,

The food I eat

I wonder if this allure is naive 

Why am I drawn to a place 

That so many want to leave?

Though, I understand

Who wouldn’t want to escape 

A burning house?

Still, from a distance, the warmth and light 

Of the flames calls my name

Out from the cold,

‘Adétòkunbọ̀’

On my return,

The land welcomes me

With a maternal embrace,

I’m surrounded by familiar strangers 

Faces that remind me of a life 

I’ve never experienced but

I somehow remember

Words create a home for me

in the melodies of their conversations,

I ease into the rhythm of life 

Where time is 

Not bound by seconds, minutes,

Or hours

Instead flowing according to 

The syncopation of the day and our desires

Where language fails me,

Music 

Acts as a thread that

Connects the fabric of our perspectives

Into a cloth I wear with pride

Like I wear my names

Which are proclaimed without guidance

And without me explaining how to spell

Adétòkunbọ̀

Perhaps I was prideful in assuming

the crown was my birthright 

For now I see

I have to come home to earn it.