PAPAMI

When you left, Mama and I were still in Nigeria, the country you came from. She took me back to Japan, her home. We could leave a place. I couldn’t leave the question that followed me.

Was it something about me?

I was little. I thought being different meant there was something wrong with me. I kept looking for the reason you had gone in my own face, in my skin, in the two halves of who I was. I wanted to hold you and Mama together. I didn’t know how.

Mama stayed. She carried us forward. And even when I was trying to be strong for her, there was a little girl inside me who wanted someone to hold her, too.

These songs make room for all of her. The girl who misses you. The woman who won’t keep waiting. The part of me that can say I love you, and still choose my own life.

I’m learning to stop blaming that little girl. She didn’t make you leave. She deserved love then. She deserves it now.

There is room for forgiveness here. And there is room for everything that still hurts.