I'll be up tonight,
I have already figured out
the nature of the dream I'll have,
it will be the same old dream
that has bothered mankind
since the beginning of time
where will we go when this
breathe becomes air?
I have thought about it
not once, not twice,
it bothers me though
religion has been inadequate
why would I allow myself to suffer
so that I can live a good life
when I die?
I guess you are wondering
whether the thoughts,
that glide and dance in my head,
are the thoughts of a sane man.
I harbour the same thoughts too,
the kind of thoughts that graze
inside this head - a head that's cost
you a fortune -
because they are no thoughts of a
completely sane man
I must admit, staying sane
is a toll task on my part
I am constantly seeking tunes
bordering on dirges and love songs
because it is then that the dinghy
halls in my mind come alive
I conjured up this idea a long time ago. The prevailing circumstances would make me appear like a bitter and grumpy human being with a grudge against the world. To be honest, I am bitter and grumpy that this idea might not be relevant today. And I blame it squarely on Arsenal because the idea is about Arsenal – the old Arsenal that served heartbreaks to Arsenal fans every weekend. Arsenal still serves heartbreaks, but it serves the wrong people.
I must admit that a significant portion of my short-lived happiness comes from the misery of Arsenal fans. I have no doubt that the feeling is mutual among Arsenal fans. Although happiness was always short-lived, it was always worth it because it served one single purpose – Man Utd is the greatest team on earth and all planets that might support life. I speak for many a football fan when I say that the greatest and the happiest moment is seeing your rivals suffering defeat after defeat. It had been like that until a man from Spain decided to upset the natural order of things.
The banter no longer sends Arsenal fans whimpering with tails between their legs like stray dogs. They are at the top of the table for God’s sake. And we are seeing their true colors. They are printing the EPL table and posting them side by side with posters of those waganga kutoka Kitui. Because some of us still have a few brain cells that have not been tampered with by substances, we patiently wait for the day they will be humbled.
It hurt my ego, a long time ago, when I chanced upon a kid clad in full Arsenal regalia. The kid was not even old enough to use the toilet without the help of an adult. According to my estimation, the kid’s parents were committing a punishable crime. I would have called the Kenyan equivalent of Child Protection Services. But I didn’t solely because I did not feed that kid, and neither did I help it use the toilet.
In hindsight, I should have called the authorities. We do not need another Arsenal fan. The ones we have are already too much for us, especially this season. In fact, I wonder why scientists are yet to discover a device that predicts with 99.9% accuracy which club newborn babies will end up supporting. Those whose results will show that there is a negligible percentage that they will be Arsenal fans will straight away be condemned to be laborers.
If you have gotten this far, I would like to let you know that I have nothing against Arsenal fans. However, I am pretty sure Arsenal fans have similar thoughts, perhaps even worse. Well, once we are done with petty distractions called football, we all become human again as we try not to starve, have a place to put our heads, and have a few coins left to finance our worldly obsessions. I am no better, except I believe I support a far superior team. Which is true as far as this article is concerned.
I firmly believe that nobody should be coerced to support any team whatsoever. I can’t explain how I became a Man Utd fan. I can’t pinpoint the exact time or place where I made a pact with the gods of football to become overly excited by Man Utd’s wins and become really depressed when it loses. By God, it’s a team thousand of miles away, and how it exerts such unexplainable influence over people. It’s beyond me. It probably has something to do with drugs.
As a young man who still thought the world catered to everyone’s whims, I had nothing better to do with my life except wait for the weekend to troop to watch Man Utd. I would make a solitary trip to Flax, the nearest shopping center, and feast my eyes on the magic Fergie had cooked that weekend. But when the old Scott called it quits, we realized how painful losing consistently is. We’ve barely won anything notable recently. And the fact that Arsenal might just win the league is unfathomable.
But tonight, the elephant will tumble down the tree. I am looking forward to it more than anything else because peace, world hunger, and climate change depend on it.
May the Pep win.
She isn't interested in your wishful
rhymes,
Mere verses don't make you a knight
Unless the verses are a bridge
To the lands where her heart beats faster
A land where she opens her heart to love
I have an
unhealthy dislike for the police. It grates my heart and mind in a weird sort
of way because I can’t turn this dislike into something useful. I am pretty
sure scientists would have found a way to harness my hatred and turn it into
electricity. Unfortunately, they are busy with important things such as
searching for pictures of naked wires on the internet. It isn’t even a
marketable 21st-century skill.
I have been kidnapped (I can’t call it an arrest) several
times by police. As per their usual MO (modus operandi), they ask you to pay
ransom for you to secure your freedom. If you have never thought deeply as I
have, freedom is the second fastest-selling product in the world after Jesus.
And if you give a gun and uniform to a person to a person who uses his brains
purely for aesthetic purposes, people will get arrested for peculiar reasons.
For instance, a friend of mine was once arrested for allegedly walking like a
Chinese.
The reason for my last kidnapping incident is even
weirder than fiction. I was kidnapped in connection with J.P. Magufuli’s death.
I am not making this up. I am also not abusing any mind-altering substances. My
conscience is crystal clear as I type this. The boys in blue appeared without
warning, proudly donning their ugly uniforms and armed as though we were
hardcore criminals. Thinking about it now, we actually were. Imagine a whole
head of state lying in state.
They began joking with us, pretending that they were
humans. How they fooled us!!! A police officer can go from human to a police
officer in approximately 3.59 seconds. You barely even notice it. All you
notice is you being hounded into the back of a police pickup, escorted with the
vilest insults ever known to man. It seems they teach it in their curriculum
assuming they have one.
The police are also taught one very important slogan: gari ya polisi haijai. We were forced to stack ourselves like crates
every time they kidnapped more people. When they were satisfied, the police
pick-up made its way to the station. It was then that we knew why we were being
kidnapped.
“Don’t you know Magufuli is dead!!?” One of them kept
saying. We all kept quiet since we could hardly breathe.
It was during the Covid period with the curfews and the
social distancing nonsense. It beat logic that we were crammed in a police
pick-up when we were required to keep social distance. But then policemen and
women aren’t known for logic. It just isn’t their strongest suit, which
probably makes them more qualified.
I do not dispute the fact that there are good cops.
However, you will never meet them because they give the rest a bad
reputation.
despite your
imperfections
you loved the best way
you could,
and that best was the
only way you knew,
but she wanted more
to fill the void
inside,
to erase the traumas,
she went through
and the insufficient
hugs she got,
but with all these
demands,
your simple love
simply wasn't enough
you were not enough
every single day you went
a step further,
scaled the cliched mountains and swam
across oceans
but in the end, you realised
you exhausted yourself for nothing
she wasn't worth jumping over a mole hill
she wasn't worth skipping a puddle
she wasn't even enough for herself
she never even loved herself
I am no Romeo, I suffer no illusions about my upbringing, there was no rodeo, down the Kerio valley, in case you are thinking you are Juliet, I'll be out there, looking for Chebet
I hope one day you
will understand,
without too much
prompting,
that they are battling
their own demons,
and are, perhaps,
holding up just a little better
and when they so they
can't give you a shoulder,
do not be bitter,
their shoulders are
too full to add an extra one,
you have to learn to
live alone, sometimes - most
of the times
I hope one day you learn,
They, too, crave a shoulder to lean on,
They are also overwhelmed by their daily struggles,
They are also trying to be strong,
They are going through the same things
as you,
And also crave a comforting shoulder
you weren't blind
you were just obstinate
perhaps in a sort of unhealthy way
about the ideal nature
of your life,
not knowing it hang on
a thin thread
and when it came
loose,
you thought you were flying
but you were plunging
into
an unforgiving abyss
of reality
when the doors came off its hinges,
you realized your blankets
couldn’t keep you warm
I carry with me the muffled voice
of a drowning man,
His voice grates my soul,
I often see his flailing arms,
as he bobs on the surface of water,
trying to catch some breaths
I will attend his funeral, lay a wreath
and try to muffle the sound of guilt
I'll merge my own guilt with
with the fake eulogies
I hope they'll cancel mine out
because I wouldn't survive an eternity
of grating guilt
and his muffled voice
I have enough of everything already
The secret to being a great writer (I learned just the other day) is being constantly on the lookout for things to distract you. All great writers have been distracted by one thing or another. William Shakespeare was distracted by the absence of enough vocabulary, so he made up plenty of words. At the last count, Shakespeare had invented 1,700 words, which, believe it or not, were subsequently added to the English language. Shakespeare can be solely blamed for creating mediocre writers whose idea of good writing is using words no one has ever heard of.
As a writer, being distracted by the need to create words is a massive waste of time. The Englishmen have since decided that there are already enough words in the English language. Besides, there are high chances that you are not a native speaker, and Englishmen do not take it kindly that you know their mother tongue better than they do. That’s why they force you to sit English proficiency tests when thousands of them cannot even distinguish there and there. Or your and you’re.
Granted, you need simpler distractions. For instance, you could abuse drugs within your wage bracket. I must insist that these drugs should be legal or that you know how not to get caught. I have been arrested so many times because of this. If I weren’t so keen on doing things that do not involve writing, I wouldn’t have had a wonderfully rich experience of sharing a cell with criminals. I had always dismissed that single bucket that rules one of the four walls in a jail cell. It is disgusting.
You could choose to travel. You could choose to gossip provided you are at peace with being the subject of gossip once you leave your gossip conglomerate. You could think about spending time thinking about starting a cult or a church. I have thought about starting a church, and I suggest you try too. It is not enriching but you will think about things that make people readily give their money to pastors. However, I will advise you not to go to church. The things that happen in the church are not as interesting as the things that people do before going to church to repent. As an aspiring writer, you do not need the latter.
The thing about being a writer is that staring at a blank page trying to abduct words and force them to form an interesting story is a painstaking endeavor. That’s why very few people write, and even fewer are great writers. The rest who do not qualify as great writers end up being journalists.
I have a new distraction. Well, this piece was all about this new distraction of mine. I am surprised that I could string this number of words when all I wanted to write about was that I joined Reddit the other day. I chose a name that I thought was funny. Advanced Rooster with four-digit numbers starting with six. If the numbers suffixed on my new avatar name represent the number of advanced roosters in the entire world, then there are more than six thousand of us. And that is not too comforting.
THE END
in the dreamless sojourns
to world's beyond the horizon,
the world within stirs with longings,
as distant as the stars,
yet still alluring like the impalpable stars
the sojourns trace,
a long and meandering path,
which disappears in the distance,
in its wake an insatiable void
drunk with a thousand dreams
in calm surrender
gaze at the unlivable dreams
that leave your heart derelict,
abandoned in its own wishful thoughts,
gaze at these dreams
and dare dream similar dreams again
