What it Takes

The sun is high,

Theirs is a motivation to fly past it

For a dream is a dream

Unless it extends beyond

And past the confines of the dark hours

As the clock ticks

Efforts they put drive them closer

And closer

To their most sacred of ambitions

To grow, to mold and to inspire

Generations after them

For them tomorrow is an inspiration

To a tell a tale

Of hard work and self-motivation

That they can sit and spell

What it takes to be them

Dear Lord

Dear Lord liberate me from my prison

Illuminate my life with righteous thoughts

Thoughts that have elongated my nights

Straighten my paths, take away the meanders

Light them or at least make the journey bearable

Give me courage to believe in the impossible

Give me courage to shut my ears to naysayers 

Dear Karma

I am pretty sure that you are okay wherever you are, probably screwing up someone’s life. I don’t object that, because it’s your job to do so.

The reason for my writing is to formally ask you out on a date, does Friday sound good. I’m suggesting taking you to Vila Rosa Kempinsky, is that cool? My assumption is that bitches like you love life on the fast lane, like expensive wine against an expensive back drop, served with smiles that is part of the job description of the waiters there and most importantly expensive food.

I want you to eat to your fill, then slowly tell me when you’ll check into my life and fuck me really good. I’ve since long held the belief that everyone is your agent, unknowingly executing your mandate. With this notion I think I overstepped it and almost took over from you. I’ve failed two people greatly. If we ever meet think their eyes will pop out bullets or something more fatal. But I know you know what might happen in advance. I want you to tell me that it’s okay. That you were kinda indisposed on the day I made those decisions that have either irrevocably changed their lives or impacted negatively on it.

I want us to strike a deal. If I’ve done you any good please consider my footsteps henceforth. If I haven’t, please be lenient. Dish out my pain in doses, like medicine. 

Looking forward to meeting you.

Yours sincerely

Kipchirchir Rop

I am Beside You

When the nights seem like temporary forevers,

The world unforgiving, weary, and lonesome,

Know that this is water under a steady bridge,

Even raging floods will not shake,

Because I will always be beside you

Perhaps the distance, and time between us

May make your world seem full of dark clouds, hovering

And the rain, always imminent, an impending doom,

But always know I will be your umbrella,

Your shelter, a rock of refuge

Perhaps our lives seem like a stage

Without actors, without the lights, or the audience

And the two of us far away, practicing our lines

I, have mastered a few of the lines:

I love you, and always will no matter the circumstances

I am always beside you, cheering you on

Wayward Nights

Wayward nights stretch their gory limbs

To touch a face, worn with deep thoughts

Alone, in a lonesome dynasty

Whereupon nights stretch to a thousand infinities

Unfazed by sleeping pills, and perhaps opium

Searching, seeking a familiar face

In every stranger that smiles better than the setting sun

Drowning the world with certainties, and dreams

A NEW NOSE

Because of the floods that have wrecked havoc across the country, I have decided, to plead with nature, to grow a new nose. I want to be able to smell disaster from many miles, better than our meteorological department who up to now is faceless. We do not see them on television even telling us to plant trees, and then end up with a tag line that we have all come to associate inefficiency, corruption, blatant disregard to the rule of law: GOK DELIVERS. I cannot entirely blame them; they personify our cherished ideals.

As it is, I have not decided to grow any more noses. The ones I have are already in surplus. It is just one huge pimple that has implanted itself a few inches above my nose. It is painful. When touched. And I can’t resist fondling it every second, just in case I can pop the contents out and let my face be the normal and perfect.

As the alarm went off, signaling a new day to pursue the same old shit (lick some corporate arse), my new nose is keen on telling me that it is not worth it. It is telling me in a language that would as well have been Greek, which of course I would have perfectly understood, that I cannot let people see me in this condition. ‘Why let people think that a terrible biological experiment backfired on you?’ It whispers. “you know very well that you don’t like weird looks strangers will throw on you…it is like someone pouring dishwater you, and from experience it  is not a very good thing.’ It goes on elucidating various bad scenarios that would occur, to which I respond in a kind: I AM NOT LEAVING THE HOUSE TODAY.

The world has natured a need in us to be perfect. You have pimples on your face? Here, have makeup. Your eyebrows are not perfectly aligned? Shave them and redraw with this. And our ladies have swallowed the bait. Perfection is the new normal. We men sometimes are not conscious of these things until the day our lovers decide to leave us and all of sudden we understand why we often woke up to a foul mood because each one of those mornings we woke with a stranger. Save for that, when strange things begin to germinate on our faces; pimples and boils.

Hollow Halls of a Soul

the aches, the longings,

that sprout beneath the angst,

within the hallow halls of my soul,

sometimes numbing, sometimes fulfilling

filling the crevices that your sweetness once sought refuge

then there’s life, then there’s more of it,

when I realize how stranded I am, among a sea of people,

aching with longing, to once again put the feeling into words

immortalize it, let the it caress the longings, and the aches

as the echoes of my heart beats

reverberates in the hollow halls of my soul