“Taxonomy of Identity” by Adesiyan Oluwapelumi

Adesiyan Oluwapelumi, TPC XI, is a Nigerian writer with a bizarre appetite for tomatoes. He is the winner of the Cheshire White Ribbon Day Creative Competition 2022 & an Honourable Mention recipient in the Starlit Winter Awards 2022. His works have appeared or are forthcoming in Poetry Wales, Konya Shamsrumi, Brittle Paper, Kissing Dynamite, Icefloe Press, Lumiere Review, Eunoia Review, Asterlit, and elsewhere. He stans Timi Sanni & tweets @ademindpoems.

Author Foreword:

Written in the hierarchical order of living organisms invented by Carolus Linnaeus, "Taxonomy of Identity" is a poem spurred by an urgency to address the surge of identity crises among individuals and nations. It is a poetic rendition that screams aloud in a tentative but bold voice the extermination of insurgency, isms, and tribal wars. While deconstructing archaic principles, it also challenges the autocratic forces that shape the lives of people in powerful ways with the potential to override their individual desires and actions. In the voice of a persona puzzled by his own uncertain identity, the piece navigates through a series of internal conflicts toward the path of self-identification.

---

Kingdom:

I am a cadet of earned identities;

never myself, for myself, by myself,

but a pseudonym for the paradox

of belonging I lodge in the confines

of my leathered flesh. 

We all wear a coat of privilege & I,

careless seamstress, weave broken

pastiche into the fabric of my being.

Behind every weft is a loose fray.

Phylum:

The flag whipped its wings like a ready

predator; its sharp fangs teething at 

us with a solemn sneer. 

Countries paying royalties to the slavery of

independence. We term what will 

cage and not kill us — freedom. 

That’s the only way we can adulterate this

war song; that it may taste like an 

anthem of conquered peace. 

The truth is this: 

the battle still lingers in our

throats like a bullet, anxious in its cartridge.

Class:

Around a burnt steak, hunters herd,

hands clasped in the hinges of another.

We learn to hold the ghost of ourselves

and hear them speak the silent dialect.

Silence, so heavy its gravity falls on 

the weight of our deaf eyes. We listen

with raptness, the melody of a song

that dyes its solfa with the satin paint

of Beethovenian sonatas.

Order:

Tribes congregate in front of the firing

squad; our borders confluence in the

terrain of death. I walk the same steps

as a Hausa girl & we 

share a common death.

Family:

Hierarchy is in the numbers

and here we do not count ghosts.

Bodies illuminated by absence. 

I was told you arrived in Seraph’s

wings, Son of Zion. Do you pity me? 

Is your sympathy a testament

of the body I carry. I mean, do you

die for generic humans like me, unsure

of their mortality. Lord, I am not

cherubic, I think myself an offspring

of a god. I think myself a god.

Genus:

The world is a room stacked with

imprisoning rights. We girdle the fetters

of our language around our tongues

and our utterances suddenly become

screams. At the Fifth National Congress,

a woman stood with dagger eyes and poniyard posture above 

masculine seats, & they plunge her 

blade into her cavities.

Say our bodies undo us when it pleases.

Species:

I am the last of my generation

at the end of everything — seeking….