The past haunts in strange, sinister way,
like a jilted ex, always lurking by the corner,
As you stroll, trying to be oblivious to it's existence,
It springs from the bushes, startling
And makes it clear it's not a prank,
Heart thumping, dazed
You are lost for words
to explain or extricate oneself,
or explain that she has no use anymore
But she throws that devilish grin
as if to say 'you and me are bound by the hip, Forever '
Some mornings,
the alarm rattles you,
launching into the abyss of the wakeful,
dire mornings,
they force you to acknowledge that you aren't
loved enough,
that you must earn it to live amongst them,
by them, and for them,
dire mornings,
force you to accept that your life doesn't truly belong to you,
and so you crawl out of your bed,
put on mask that's your smile
And face the day like warriors of the yore,
And you assure yourself that you will not dire
in battle of life,
that you won't live for mornings
that show up without meaning
We need distractions aplenty,
we need them not as a cure for
our chronic unhappiness,
but to distract us from our own
impending deaths
The clock ticks ever so imperceptibly
Towards unwelcome death
We need alibis aplenty
Some take to drugs to hurry the date
with the grim reaper,
some take to women, a few whom they
ever learn to love,
And some live without the will to kill themselves,
And, like pendulums, swing back and forth
between drugs
and loose women,
seeking love from hopeless places
You have not met them yet,
No, you haven't,
You haven't met that person
who'll make you lose faith in humanity,
Who will question your existence
You have not met them
In the meantime, enjoy
She is somewhere, missing me
I am here wondering what
things I did to her
If anything, I lived unapologetically,
and loved her
in a carefree manner,
Never at once concerned if she'd leave
I find myself debating with myself,
I have very little money,
And I am trying to find reasons to spend it,
She's asked for some,
Although I wanted her to so I can gleefully tell her I don't have it,
I find no thrill in telling her so,
The fact I'll say it from a point of lack
Robs me that thrill
were I in the proximity of a liquor den,
I'd have had a cheap one
And forgot my existence
for a while
I can't begin to imagine how
it all began
English language was as complex
as nuclear science
My buttocks suffered to my brain
to even begin comprehending
simple English sentence structure
I hated every moment of those lessons
The difference between there and their
sticks to my to date
I have not the same feeling
I felt eons ago,
You sound the same,
bubbly in a way that ticked
the soft spots reserved for you,
I do remember, wearily,
about those little things that irked me
those things I ignored just to be with you,
the things that made you say
I understood you
I did because there was none beside you
I should not have
And, perhaps, that's why you are alone
It's a normal day,
Sun rise signal anodyne chores,
a punishment for daring to live,
we toil in the sun drenched earth,
only to prove why we deserve to live
Except we are looking for things we
know not,
and that makes existence a hellish experience
One morning you'll wake up
as though you've discovered the
secret of life,
What is it, you may ask
Some say it's simple,
But is it?
Yes, it sure is.
As simple as breathing
At first it felt
as though you would make away
with something a little precious,
but then I did confuse it with material things,
but overtime you stole much more
much more precious,
time,
a dream,
I felt bereft when you left
I still think there was a better way
to love
She blocked you everywhere,
But you were not aware,
Until she told you
How she wasted herself
You were not thinking of her
Maybe you did, but it was not
sufficient enough for you to worry
and you didn't get in touch
there's calmness,
a lulling serenity,
in knowing yourself
well enough to reckon
that you're always on
Your own
when shit goes down
We met a woman with balls. It is a privilege of sorts, because very few people ever do in their lifetime. How did we know, you may ask. We known- get ready for the answer - because she said it. "I have balls!" To quote her verbertim. And you must believe whatever a woman says, especially when she's drunk. And it's in the morning. And she has dreadlocks.
It was a few months before the 2022 general elections. There was money to be burned. It was not surprising to find people drinking in the morning or in various stages of drunkenness. We were also in the process of catching up, although not on the benovelent pockets of a man or woman craving the debueached walls of Parliament.
We were seated, silently ruminating about dreams we'd never attain. Unaware, we were on a brisk yet imperceptible march towards alcohol addiction or dependency, whichever you call it. We sipped our cheap beers, unbothered and not bothering anyone.
It was in the morning, as indicated earlier. Nothing was badass. Nothing beats drinking in the morning, especially when serious tax payers are busy building the economy. We drunk during COVID-19, when all bars were closed. We were so serious no life-threatening disease would stop us. We were addicts then, but we never admitted to being addicts. Addiction happened to others, not us, we thought.
You may think that all we did was drink. No, we dedicated some time to thinking about drinking. Sometimes we worked, a terribly inconvenient way to get money as opposed to being politicians' children. Besides, we were (still are) afraid of jail.
It happened that the lady with balls was also an early drinker. She had an accomplice, a man. He talked recklessly about politics as if he was a man of great importance. We deduced later that he probably was a political operative sent to listen to the 'ground.' He pried. He prodded trying to elicit some political response from us. We kept quiet. Sometimes, when you are drinking in the morning, all you need is silence.
He talked in English. He thought we were foreigners. Damn. We looked like foreigners. We kept quiet as if politics was something way beyond our grasp. As we ruminated, the lady with balls emerged from the bathroom. The smell of cigarette wafted through. We never cared too much although there was a distinct notice that forbade smoking inside the bar. The owner reprimanded her.
It turned out that she hadn't been alone in the toilet, smoking. There was a man, a known local who fell on hard times due to addiction. He wasn't like us, we could never drink until we lose jobs. Such abominable things happen to others, not us. We sipped our beers to that.
When cornered, the lady pulled the woman card. She claimed that the owner of the bar was targeting her because she was a woman. As if the warning addressed women only, and not all women but her specifically. We watched quietly as she rumbled on and on about the unfairness of the notice against smoking. We'd never seen someone defend their right to smoke their way to lung cancer. We didn't intervene, nor interject at all. It was her against the sign. Which was pretty clear to us.
She went further to claim that the bar wasn't even his, that he was riding on a woman's (a Woman like her who deserves to smoke where there's a sign prohibiting smoking) benovelence. That he was nothing without her. That without her he wouldn't be able to talk to her against ruining her lungs that belonged to a woman. And then she began attacking his manhood. At this point the man realized that she had stooped so low that his presence there was no longer required. How things can descend from smoking to manhood is a matter that baffled us. Secretly, we were glad our manhood wasn't under scrutiny although it should have.
"I have more balls than you," she said laughing at her seemingly ingenious thought. "You only have two while I have thousands." She spoke with such conviction that you could have thought she was capable of impregnating a man.
She talked by herself sometimes supported by her colleague. She had so much to unpack, as though she was waiting for that precise moment. It's unfortunate that some drink while angling for a fight or confrontation. It's worse when it's a woman because, well, there's no reason to hit a Woman.
Eventually she cooled down. The conversation tapered to some random irrelevant topics. However, there was only one question in our heads, which balls was she re
ferring to?
It happens,
almost always,
as though don't coax it,
without silence
with lack of resolve,
eventually we end up
being the very people we loath
we are okay doing nothing
just dreaming those big dreams
I don't know how to miss you,
I have tried but I can't,
I guess longing for you needs a manual,
an how-to,
it somehow feels as though it can't be
a DIY project,
there's a science to missing you,
and I am an ancient man,
a man who tells time by the sun's position,
and years by crop harvest,
seasons by locust invasions,
for that I am duly lost, disillusioned in my longing,
probably undue,
I don't know whether we'll ever meet again,
I have reserved my missing you,
were it possible,
I'd pack the precious little moments
we shared,
the brief love,
the laughter, that often felt as though it was stolen,
and store somewhere,
somewhere I'd reach occasionally,
to gaze and remember to miss you
just for a second.
for a brief vain moment.
when you no longer exist,
in anyone's plans,
its you alone, in your decrepit hacienda,
rolling tobacco on obituary section of old
newspapers,
you are like a shadow, present
but never missed
mulling,
ruminating,
meditating,
you no longer dream
beyond your next tipple,
it's over for you
it was over a long time ago
