Ijeoma Umebinyuo Quotes

The day your education makes you roll your eyes at your father. The day your exposure makes you call your own mother uncivilized, the day your amazing foreign degrees make you cringe as your driver speaks pidgin english, may you never forget your grandfather was a farmer from Oyo state who never understood english.

there are ways to let the world kill you.
first, lose your tongue in the mouth of a
lover.
second, do not remember your softness.

I curated our love into poems
and all the pains became less
all the anger left, eventually
but, there is no denying
here on the tip of my soul
with scars still healing,
that once I loved a man.

forcing manhood
on boys with skin
still made of
silk and mother's love
is cruel

I told the priest
my god is a black woman
he poured holy water on me
and scheduled me for an exorcism

I tell you sometimes the moon is too weak to be full.

Here's to the security guards who maybe had a degree in another land. Here's to the manicurist who had to leave her family to come here, painting the nails, scrubbing the feet of strangers. Here's to the janitors who don't understand English yet work hard despite it all. Here's to the fast food workers who work hard to see their family smile. Here's to the laundry man at the Marriott who told me with the sparkle in his eyes how he was an engineer in Peru. Here's to the bus driver, the Turkish Sufi who almost danced when I quoted Rumi. Here's to the harvesters who live in fear of being deported for coming here to open the road for their future generation. Here's to the taxi drivers from Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and India who gossip amongst themselves. Here is to them waking up at 4am, calling home to hear the voices of their loved ones. Here is to their children, to the children who despite it all become artists, writers, teachers, doctors, lawyers, activists and rebels. Here's to international money transfer. For never forgetting home. Here's to their children who carry the heartbeats of their motherland and even in sleep, speak with pride about their fathers. Keep on.

Start now. Start where you are. Start with fear. Start with pain. Start with doubt. Start with hands shaking. Start with voice trembling but start. Start and don't stop. Start where you are, with what you have. Just... start.

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

Beneath it all
I know
you are made of soft wind
and calm flowing water
but
on days when
you become strong wind
and crashing waves
be
rest assured
you did not
become less of you

do not become the woman
apologizing for days
when she has thorns
from the harshness
of the world.

Stay away
from men who peel the skin
of other women, forcing you to
wear them.

IRONY
They invite you
to come view
artifacts
stolen
from your ancestors
in their museums
as their
"experts"
explain
your
ancient
Benin
kingdom

1. You must let the pain visit.
2. You must allow it teach you
3. You must not allow it overstay.

(Three routes to healing)

You teach your daughters
how to rub poison on their skin
remember
to teach your sons
how not to be serpents.

Healing comes in waves
and maybe today
the wave hits the rocks
and that's ok,
that's ok, darling
you are still healing
you are still healing.

Stop the idea that a woman's beauty is for a man's gaze, that you have the right to touch her. This idea that she must smile and accept unwanted approaches even when she is clearly uncomfortable. Just because you call a woman beautiful does not mean you have the right to behave like her beauty belongs to you. There are women healing from scars gotten from men who have called them beautiful yet offered them pain. The beauty of a woman is hers and hers alone. There are triggers for some women, respect this and know this. The beauty of a woman is hers and hers alone

you desecrated the shrines of our fathers
you pushed our tongue, stole our culture
paraded your wickedness as my savior
you refused the right to let me own my narrative
you butchered our names
you brought war on our land
you call my people "savages"
you stole our histories
and wear them proudly in your museums
you wash away our achievements
you carry it as yours
you "discovered" what was already mine
you plant puppets, assassinating our leaders
you desecrated the shrines of my mothers
when we worshipped nature, you laughed at us
now, you want to carry our ways, learn from us
we refuse to write softness into our stories
for you to feel comfortable
we refuse to let anyone but us own our
narrative
we refuse to believe your lies again

you will not spit in the face of our fathers
and think his children will now sit quietly.

this body has carried herself into days so bitter all gods wept. Yet, I am still here and I will always be here.

Forgive me father,
but sometimes my God
is a woman
sitting on the kitchen floor
her hands holding her legs
screaming for help
without making a sound.

Forgive me father
but sometimes my God
is a woman
calling me on the phone
begging me to call her
"beautiful"
because her lover forced
ugliness into her soul.

Forgive me father
but sometimes my God
is a woman
crying in the shower
begging for another God
to lift her burden.

Naked before my eyes,
I thank whatever Gods created your
ancestors.

So many broken children living in grown bodies mimicking adult lives.

Survive
...
Some women survive
by creating walls,
big walls guarding their hearts
and you say
"let them in"
but
she has been covered in regrets,
crawled on all fours for her salvation.
Dont curse them
for when her attacker came
there she was, loving, now
she has built her walls
brick by brick
guarding against parasites
Don't blame her
Some women are broken,
not ready to be healed,
some women are broken
not ready for love
and that's all right.
Let her find herself
Let her become her own sun
Let her

You did not carry yourself
away from pain
to become pain itself.

Do not
drown yourself in a man.

He will leave you struggling to
breathe.

Invisible

She scanned through the magazine
for girls who looked like her
with deeper hues,
flat nose, and thick hair.

The day she turned fifteen
she scrubbed herself with bleach
while screaming for God,
whispering over and over again
"the darker the skin,
the deeper the struggle"
releasing a sigh
that made her soul shake.