2009 was the first time I set foot in Canada.
I was not a newcomer, but rather a tourist. I stood in solace,
listening to the crashing waves of Niagara Falls
as they roared an opera of foreshadowing. That one day,
almost ten years to be exact—this country would be my home too.

Before I knew it, it was 2019 and I was in Devonian Gardens getting married.
O’ Canada, the home of my bride to be—but also my home to be.

I wish I knew that discovering things virtually, was another foreshadowing of what was to come.

I’ve lived in Canada for over 700 days. The first 200 were great. Health care access, legal cannabis, Albertans love Texas, and I don’t really have a hockey team. I used the Flames as a way to connect.

I used all of these things as a way to connect. 

I wasn’t committed to wearing a Canadian tuxedo, or saying “washroom” instead of “bathroom,” but I was committed in my own way.

I even drank Alberta Genuine Draft sometimes.
Okay, I drank Alberta Genuine Draft more than a few times.
Calgary had become mine. The new pocket of the country
where my Blackness occupied space.

I had soaked in the sounds of Niagara,
meditated poems inside my psyche

on the shores of Kelowna.
I had done the same in Kananaskis.

I was becoming one with the country, embracing these places as I juggled identities old and new.

Black American
Afro-Dutch
tourist
expat
newcomer.
I prefer immigrant.

This is an elegy, I’m here to abolish the term.
For me, newcomer feels like a cover up tattoo.
I’m an immigrant. I’m not trying to hide it.

Like going to a comic book convention as a cosplayer,
when you’re a Black you just stick out. There’s a certain swagger you bring.
Despite all of this, I have yet to taste true Canadian maple syrup.

The first 200 or so days here were magic.
I wrote poems about police brutality
at Fort Calgary, unaware of the irony.

Ignorance is bliss.

O’ Canada, I woke up early for Boxing Day shopping,

and ate Poutine with Christmas joy each time.

I bachelor partied on Stephen Avenue
and returned to the same place months later
ogling at the ice sculptures with my queen,

our bodies people watched to keep warm, and pass time.

Again, ignorance is bliss, because looking back, even the boring nights were paradise.

I listened to the expressions that are local to y’all, foreign to me. With each “eh?” I felt my heart warming to Canada, as my memories of America began to grow as cold as the very sculptures I was ogling.

My country has never been completely innocent. Nor has the new one for that matter.
But Jack Gilbert taught me that we should enjoy life even when our house is burning.

I watched the madness that my president forced upon my people at home.
I wanted to apologize to Canada, to the rest of the world.

Not too long after, my new leader’s Blackface history was unearthed.
Whether a “newcomer” here, or a citizen at home I was not welcome anywhere.

Even though I was frozen in the moment,
I decided I would not let this too turn me into an ice sculpture.
I would not let Canada crush me like America has tried to.

I began to make a list.
A list of things I wished to do.
A list to pass the time.

Besides my wife, or my dog, this list was all I had.

Most immigrants get to experience what a nation has to offer. But for the past 500+ days. I have only been offered my home. The world is in crisis. With each one of us dancing along to the tune of fear, hoping it doesn’t add kerosene to the flames. Many people aren’t working from home anymore, they are living at work.

Boundaries are deleted. Everything is virtual.

I want to travel again. To go to Raptors games, and spend $18 on a beer because that’s the equivalent in loonies. I want to complain about how expensive it is. Deep down inside I’m just happy to be in Toronto and hoping I see Drake.

I want to get lost writing poems at the Banff Centre while dreaming of becoming
the Black Anne Carson, the next Cheryl Foggo, or Suzette Mayr.

I want to use my French for a weekend with locals in Montréal because I haven’t been to Paris since a time where I thought my peach fuzz whiskers was a claimable beard. I want to perform poems in Quebec City because the French teacher who gave me a D was from there. I want to speak up at a city hall meeting without risking my health. It’s a way I can use my voice because permanent residents can’t vote in elections, and sometimes I’m tired of bleeding on the page.

I left America because it hates that I look like Trayvon Martin.
I want to live in a Canada where there are no more Colten Boushie’s.

I long for the days we all can get along here on Turtle Island. 

I long for the days when I can think less about why Colin Kaepernick never got another job in the NFL. Or why the CFL didn’t offer him a contract. How they missed another opportunity to make Canada look great.

I want to wake up and smell the flowers 

across magnolia fields in Victoria, British Columbia 

a place that will mesmerize my irises 

a place my father once called “the promised land”
but not as beautiful as the euphoric tulips in Amsterdam.

My sister once told me my dad wanted to move to Canada
to be closer to me in America, but it was too cold.
The idea of it all makes me to jump face first
into a marshmallowed mountain of Manitoba snow.

Don't worry,
I was born in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
I can handle it.

Take me to Toronto Caribana!

I want to two step to Trinidadian tempos 

while eating Jamaican jerk chicken at Nathan Phillips Square.

My godmother was from Port of Spain,
she would want me to bask in this Black joy.

I need to bless my palate with soul food from Nova Scotia.
My friends in Houston or Philly might see this as a cardinal sin,
but Black people are everywhere.

Halifax is the home of the only Black woman on currency.
For some that may be a problem. For me it’s a miracle.

In fact, I prefer Desmond dollars. Or Interact.

The most American part of this genre bending piece is the idea that I can’t locate Yukon on the map
and sometimes mix it up with the Northwest Territories. Nunavut makes sense to me, but I promise
I’ll visit all of them and get it right one day.