My Childhood Tastes Like by Kit de Waal | Editorial

WORDS BY YOMI SODE

My childhood tastes like water / like wind / mouth open embracing life and nature / as sweet as Fan Milk / as tart as a cut / dabbed with TCP and cotton wool / my cowardly scream / my watery eyes / me crying then laughing / wondering how adults changed my mood / my childhood tastes like places second generations have never seen nor touched / just fantasied / home on my tongue / its palette of built up traffic / yam porridge and farm land / where cows are slaughtered on backstreets / people walking on blood bare feet / fighting flies that perch on the tips of their ear / that stench of death / my childhood tastes like flight food / England through my eyes / it’s abnormalities in weather and racial tension / how it smells of multiculturalism and colonised spices

My childhood tastes like breast milk / and smells of baby powder and incense / of fried fish nesting in the wool of my school blazer and the chill of rub smudged around my nostrils / my childhood tastes like / my childhood tastes like / like lemons at the sight of seeing my mother cry after finding out her grandmother died / that silence / that stillness / then a wail that could be heard on shores / on islands / I knew this feeling was bad when I saw no smiles / no hourglass loving embrace / I remain sat / cross legged / watching her tears stream like rivers / even when wiped it treacled down her palm

My childhood tastes like shaki / I never swallowed the fact he did not fight hard enough for her love / never stormed through rain to affirm his position as I saw in movies / this shaki / that you chew and keep chewing / till its rubbery ends weaken / this childhood of tasting rain and snowflakes / how it sticks to ice poles and railings

My childhood tastes like fine wine / all its richness held within / my whole life I've been holding it in / making sense of memories / I have sat, watching hot knives mark the cheeks of children / parents / holding their feet like cattle / if legs had mouths they would bite they would spit / each scream / like a mothers slap / my childhood tastes like porridge that rose from my stomach as I ran for my life through bushes / feet so nimble / mind so sharp / my childhood feels like the best drug on a natural high / like the first kiss as I bit the flesh of her lip / ensuring she saw a longing in my eyes / this blood that’s drawn from every fight I lost / each rib that ached / this childhood of catching dandelions wishing for her to like me

My childhood tastes like jollof / like Auntie’s agbo / that stains my tongue with garlic but rids my insides of junk / it tastes of sugar cane remains on my palm after talking too much in class / it tastes like bush meat / banana / burnt toast / coco pops / coconut / watermelon / Oreo / with toppings of ignorance and racial terms I've grown to know / it tastes of milk / cookies and bedtime stories / tis but a dream / but as physical as touch

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What information do we collect?

You give us your information when you book an event, make a purchase from our shop or sign up to our newsletter.  We use Stripe to process card transactions and do not store credit card details.

We keep a record of the emails we send you, and we may track whether you receive or open them so we can make sure we are sending you the most relevant information. We may then track any subsequent actions online.

Like most websites, we receive and store certain details whenever you use the At The Table website. We use “cookies” to help us make our site – and the way you might use it – better. There is more information on this below.

What we use your personal information for

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You have the following rights related to your personal data:
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