Day 4: A Poetic Tale of Breakup (in Nigeria lingo).
P.S: I want you guys to read this in Simplysayo’s voice when she’s reading one of her kpoems.
Breakfast, the first meal of the day usually eaten in the morning; or at least that’s what the dictionary stipulates.
The present usage of this lingo in the trenches (read naija) is however different.
Ever since Burna boy released his song, “last last” we’ve all unofficially agreed with him that the term-breakfast is now synonymous to heartbreak.
I mean why won’t we, when the aforementioned crooner in said song serenaded us with this line “e don cast, las las, na everybody go chop breakfast”.
The matter is clearly beyond us.
The thing though is no two breakfast are ever the same.
As I drink my oats in the morning I wonder whether one Seyi somewhere in the corner of Lagos, is chopping a different type of breakfast as she’s swearing for the yoruba wasteman that broke her heart.
As I’m preparing akara and bread for that lazy Saturday morning chow, I wonder whether Amaka’s acrylic nails are feverishly flying across her touch screen as she’s typing a digital breakfast for one unsuspecting oga somewhere.
Breakfast in 2022 and beyond has forever been redefined to mean something else and I wonder how long it will last.
Will we drop it? Will our kids adopt it to mean the literal meaning of the term or will they apportion cultural meaning?
Or will we in 20 years remember and wonder what came over us that we thought it was rationale to associate the first meal of the day with the rancour distaste heartbreak leaves in one’s mouth.
These are the issues.
