I am not the boy in the room.

I am the compounding of generational choices perfectly distilled to deliver the greatest hit.

Seeing only the boy in front of you is missing the crown he wears that is shaped by the blood-soaked soil of those before you.

Seeing only the boy in front of you is a fatal desire to embrace the same destiny.

I am a Bini boy with a rich history of royalty that courses through my veins and is revealed on my neck and wrists in priceless coral beads.

I am a Bini boy with a blank slate of future possibilities waiting for my imprint like my stainless white dress.

I am not the boy in the room. I am the room.

My age is not defined by the day of my birth but by the enduring tapestry of my ancestry. And that ancestry requires that you bow in its presence.

Bow.

– Osasu Oviawe