Ndako Na Ngai, or My Home by Laurène Southe
Ndako Na Ngai, or My Home
Laurène SoutheSometimes, a piece of home lands on the tip of your tongue
as it dissolves into smaller pieces of digestible joy –
Savory pronounced as pundu or chikwanga.
Other times, home is a language that your heart yearns for
but never learns how to speak,
Entangled in the mystery of Bolingo.
In some occasions, home is held close and firm
in the form of an auntie’s liputa
Before you could ever grow into the shape to wear one around your waist.
There are moments where home appears in the gaze of others,
Often so clear in vision,
You could grab it with your own hands and embrace it with your lips.
Its walls were made of Nzambe
‘Fore it was erased by all traces on earth.
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SHARED WITH GRATITUDE
This poem appeared in The Shallow Tales Review, .
ABOUT LAURèNE SOUTHE
Laurène Southe is a 25-year-old writer of Congolese heritage based in Vienna, Austria. She has works in Brittle Paper, The Shallow Tales Review and the African Migration Report Poetry Anthology. Since age 17, she has since built her passion for poetry by attending the Vienna African Writers Club in the African Studies department of the University of Vienna, and in 2021, she had her spoken word performance at the African Diaspora Festival in Klagenfurt. In 2022, Laurène took part in a… (more)
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