“Everything has its ramifications……. “

“Everything has its ramifications……. ” these are the words mum told my brother, after he steps in the house, almost 20 minutes past curfew. I could feel the hurt in her voice. The agony of a mother who is always constantly trying to save her son’s neck, from his own wrong doings.

It’s not the first time I have sat there, watched her say iteratively, without getting tired” you do whatever it is that you feel like you want to do, but one day, you will remember my words” and this will come every time after he does something wrong, something he was warned about.

I guess turning 18 comes with a package of stubbornness. Makes you feel like you are now an adult, you can do whatever it is that you want, you don’t want to listen when you are rectified, After all, you now have the world in your hands, what could possibly go wrong? I remember I once couldn’t wait to turn 18, I had a whole list of to-do, I mean, hey, I will be 18 by then!! Ranging from getting into the house a little bit past the stipulated time, have a boyfriend, do whatever it is that I wanted. But truth be told, when I finally hit 18, I realized that there’s more to it than I thought. It goes past wanting to be a rebellious, acerbic teenager under the influence of hormone propelled friends, because with freedom, comes great responsibility. Yet it is such an imperative stage to be at, in order to see things as they are.

With my brother, he sees himself grown up enough to talk back to the woman who brought him to this earth. She will tell him, ” don’t you dare give me that condescending look, nor talk to me like that” and guess what?
He will do exactly that, gawk his eyes at her, and talk back, without an ounce regret in him.
At times, I will just wish that dad was alive, discipline him thoroughly since he’s got no moral compass whatsoever. Mum wouldn’t have that kind of strength, neither do I, but one must be a fool not to heed a parent’s warning, because nothing good ever comes from it.

But most of all, I hate been caught in between. Being a first born comes with a share of its own problems and blessings. I will not know whether to listen to my brother rant of how mum is always on his case, how she never listens to him, how am never a good sister who supports him, or listen to mum telling me that I talk to my brother and I just remain quiet, which will come off as hypocrisy, since she will insinuate I’m taking his side. It’s never easy.

However, given are the better days that we will all have forgotten everything, sit together, and just laugh like there’s no tomorrow, forget about the worries and pain that we cause each other, and live through the good days.

Guys, i just want to say thank you so much for all the followers, so much love from you all. Be blessed as we continue to interact. ❤❤❤❤❤❤

Black and white.

“Black and white ain’t no color” they said. “Be a girl, choose bright colors”
And it all confuses me, because in my mind, in some house I am yet to move in, I have already decorated it with utensils, curtains, pouffe, chairs all with a touch of black and white. He loves red, I know that too well, I have one of his red hoodies, so I know. It looks good on him, and when I ask him, he says brown is his favorite color, the color of my skin, and it makes me blush for a moment there. But then I deadpan him, I’m not brown, I’m light skinned. I’ve told him so every now and then. And at other times, he will say I am white just to get on my nerves, and it makes me smile. After all, white is the other half of the color I love.

Peace.

The weather is just as uncharacteristically unclear, just like my feelings, but I know soon it’s going to rain, and it will wash away my uncertainties and drown them off with it.

And then, the sun will reawaken a new being within me, and renew my soul.

And the cool breeze will reassure me that everything will be the same again, and if not, it will all be better than before.

And the ground upon which I stand, will be strong enough to hold my weight after it has been made more fertile and fed off whatever was washed away by the rain.

And I shall smile again, for I will have bloomed with extreme intensity, my body jiggling with happiness and I shall be at peace.

An overdue apology.

This piece is a dedication to friend I ought to have had as best, yet we now are, or have been at cross roads, never seeing eye to eye. Maybe a declaration of my jealousy, maybe a poke of the finger in her eyes, maybe a litmus paper test that will help me clear things up, maybe a partying shot that’s been long overdue, maybe a tribute to a broken promise once made. But all in all, for the pain and emptiness.
I am sorry and, this time, i feel ashamed. Okay, i know I’ve messed up and i am a sucker for ancient laws of behaving one self. So imma start by admitting i have jealousy issues, huge ones. And maybe one day, just like this terms, it will be the cause of my fall, just like now. And this time, i don’t know what to assign my blame to, or who.
This is where it gets complicated, i don’t have any good answer. But i do have a bad one. And that comes in this apology that has been in my pocket for so long, maybe i should have put it out sooner, but i didn’t have the guts to do it. I am sorry for being the worst person ever. I am sorry for having let bitterness and jealousy get the better part of me. Not to justify myself, but what happens when you finally get something or somebody that means the world to you, a thing or person that you’ve never had before, hence you cherish them selfishly and childishly, cause you know what it means to lack? For me, that is what happened. I became overprotective and overly jealous about my friend, so it’s easy to say jealousy was my downfall, my own making. That will be the blatant and mundane truth of it all.
There’s this song by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Patron that says, ” you can’t make old friends, it was me and you since way back then, but you can’t make old friends ” and that lays the whole premise of this whole piece. I have done many pieces on love, heartbreak but never on this friendship, maybe this is the time.
So as we continue talking not, taking different positions of sitting in class, unlike how we used to take the front seats together, as we continue walking in and out of class like we don’t know each other, being in the same discussion group, with only an exchange of fake niceties and verbal webs of politeness, it’s crazy to think , that was the way it all started. When I would come visit you at Summ, and we would take cocoa and hot Kdfs, lying in your bed, gossiping about everything and nothing, going to class together and talking all the damn time , that was the start of a solid friendship, one that I never had, and that meant so much to me and yet here we are today, two tangenital persons.
I can’t pretend….
I can’t pretend like I don’t miss my best friend , because I really do.
Like I don’t miss the good times we had together.
Like i can’t give anything just to have her back with me.
Like I don’t pray to God to cast his mercy on me, bring us back together and help me deal with my jealousy issues.
Like my small brother doesn’t ask about her, but I reprimand him and tell him not to bother me with his questions.
Like I don’t miss going and staying together in class just like old times.
Like I don’t blame myself for everything that happened, and now I have to bear the ramifications.
Like I don’t pass by the woman who sells leggings just like mine, a pair like she always insisted that she wanted, but I can’t buy her since we don’t talk no more.
Like I don’t miss walking all the way to Juja City mall just for window shopping and afterwards eat some cheap meal or snack cause it’s what we could afford.
Like I don’t feel awful on seeing her with other friends.
Like I didn’t feel bad when she failed to attend class for a few days only for me to see photos later that she was having a good time with her friends.
Like I don’t miss us having stupid fights, even while staying in the same room.
Like I don’t miss us making fun and gossiping about others.
Like my mum doesn’t ask about her, why I can’t take bananas to her,why she no longer comes here, but I just cut her short full of asperity and bitterness, saying she can as well contact her since she has her number.
Like I don’t miss going to buy matumbo at First Class with her.
Like I didn’t feel bad when I remembered she said she doesn’t like mutura, yet there she was, having a time of her lifetime.
Like I don’t feel like telling her to shut up during group discussions, as I make funny faces at her.
Like I don’t miss us watching movies while ensconced in my bed.
Like i don’t miss going to his house with her after classes.
Like I don’t feel awful for what my stupid ways might have made her feel.
Like i don’t check out her contact on my phone as “Sweet Bestie ” think of deleting it, but I end up refraining from it.
Like I don’t come across our photos and scroll hurriedly past them, so as not to reminisce, not that I don’t want to, but well..
Like i ain’t bearing the ramifications of all these.
Like I wouldn’t give anything to have things like they were before.
Like I don’t easily make friends, but none can possibly come bear to what level of friendship we had.
Like I haven’t been weathering my shit storms, iteratively thinking of all that happened.
Like I don’t know when the rain started beating me, cause I think I know where it all started and the culmination of it all too.
Like this wasn’t perhaps the year that our friendship would continue to blossom , like nothing happened.
Like I never looked forward to us living close to each other, with our own families, coming up with strategies to dodge our kids and husbands for a girl’s day out.
Like we haven’t had our lows and highs before.
Like I wouldn’t turn back the hands of time and change everything.
Like I don’t miss being her oestrogen pumped advisor.
Like I ain’t wussed up that I messed everything and there’s no going back.
Like i still don’t have the lengthy birthday message i sent her last year on her birthday, yet this year all I did was “happy birthday ” trying not to sound uncharacteristically needy or edgy. After all, she had “them” wishing her all the wishes she needed.
Like I once didn’t text her, to check up on her, but it turned out to be extremely short conversation.
Like adrenaline isn’t rushing through my body as I place my fingers on the keyboard, with every click emanating, resonating in the entire room. With a heart half optimistic and half sunken, with the kids playing outside, the dog barking and pigs snoting from a distance.
Been postponing this piece for the longest time ever, opening my notebook, looking at the one or two lines scribbled, then assure myself that there’s still a lot of time to get down to it, so I just end up closing it, yet today, after having three consecutive dreams with her being in them, I got emotional, cried in my sleep, and promised that when I wake up, imma finish the piece, put it out there, in order to be at peace with myself. And as it is with other several imperative pieces that I keep closely to my heart and don’t delete them from my notebook, this will be one of them, all because it’s a part of me that I don’t want to forget.
To a friendship that got ruined, I am truly sorry.

Sad…..

I was there at the grave when she received more flowers, more tears, as multitudes showed up, to proclaim what they never did when she was alive. Unembellished beauty and genuineness that radiated a striking personal confidence, but you all killed her before her time. Pain was inconsequential compared with the anguish of life that she was going through. She had known her worth, and yet all she wanted was to be seen as worth living for. Her whispery voice slicing the air, at the grave. All she wanted was her hand to be held, her little efforts appreciated. Not sure she remembered how deep her dimples were, it was long since she smiled, wanting someone to notice and carry her weaknesses and embed them on his chest to be his honor. She had her own stuff and life in order, looking forward to coming home to someone, and shower him with all the love she had. Her fire was something many never knew how to handle, and so they left her to burn down, but like a phoenix, she rose up every time, never losing hope, and more determined to give love another shot. Unable to tell the difference between yesterday and today, she was growing fragile, holding on to what she knew not. Fearing going to sleep, afraid she would never wake up. Now, she was the type to live for, the type you are given by the universe, not because she’s frail, but she carries a whole world you’ve never seen nor experienced. The type to sacrifice her all just to see you happy, at her own expense. The type you lose and you spend the rest of your life regretting.
She was the force ultimately pulling your strings, but you never noticed, you never gave two shits about it. With a medieval attitude of how women should be seen and not heard, compartmentalizing her love, to fit your every need. now she lay 6ft below the ground, yet another victim of unrequited love. From the back of the mourning crowd, I saw you, how you knelt there by her graveside, clasping your hands like a supplicant, tears reeling down your cheeks, a bouquet of tulips by your knees, wet from your tears, praying and hoping for the impossible. A fool is what I called you, as I pocketed my hands heading away from the grave yard, maybe, just maybe we will all understand the metrics of how to handle the ones we love, before death got too comfortable and holds them in his arms.

Corona Virus bringing the world to an impasse.

Quick question, does it make me an insensitive “human” if am not at all worried about the Corona virus pandemic? I mean, i do feel like super guilty, for not being worried at the high rate the virus is spreading. So here’ the thing, for the safety of everyone, one of the major things is sanitizing your hands before getting into any public transport, and that is exactly what happened yesterday. I prefer riding shotgun, i just love it there, you don’t get to worry about being sandwiched, sitting on “saucers” or the agony of being next to a conductor who’s gross armpits, emanating some awful smell are all over your face, making you nauseated.

Waiting for the vehicle to get fully boarded, is when i realized just how Corona has put everyone and everything in a conundrum and it got me thinking. If a person is supposed to maintain social distance means, a case in a point, if i visit a hotel, i have to be one seat away from the other person, which means, by the end of the day, the hotel will have received half of the customers, as compared to other times, which means, they will incur losses, because the amount, will not have catered for the daily ongoings like rent which, will have to be paid at the end of the month, nothing less of what is expected.

As Africans, Kenyans perhaps, one of the things that defines our relationship, has to be greetings . Greetings are a show of good tidings, expresses a good state of well being, as well as love and care. This means, that things aren’t in the status quo as they should be and that has to be the culmination of a disaster. At this point, greetings by word of mouth is all that is going on, and truth be told, it kind of sucks. There has been a huge topple of the day to day equilibrium, which is bringing everything to a halt.
Washing hands is something that is not normalized! Cranky as it sounds, it’s the truth. It’s evident that all hand sanitizers placed in almost every shop and working areas, indicate something that is all new, something that hasn’t been happening. To be honest, how many times do you even wash your hands? Be it after visiting the privy? Before eating? And all those other circumstances that need you to wash your hands before or after? High chances are that, not so many times. So guess what? Here we all are, washing hands has become a daily mantra, throwing germs under the bus so hard, i am sure they having a shock of a lifetime, like “hey humans, when did you all become this civilized? So you all can clean up this good? Damn! You all nailed it this time!! You all deserve a garland of roses! ”

Ignorance i call it, because I’ve done it countless times. You just assume” germs weren’t aware” and if anyone isn’t there to remind you or nag you to do it, you just won’t do it. Everyone is getting reclused, from all the social activities that bring people together, in a bid to lower the stakes of infection and it’s all understandable.

This year has been nothing but chaotic, since the very first month. It all started with rumors of a roaming world war, then came the locusts, and now, the Corona virus that got us all at hostage. Like what’s gonna be next?. What other surprise does 2020 hold for us?. I mean come on, all we did was usher 2020 in just like any other year, told it to come in and stay still, without touching anything, yet here we are, everything getting wrecked up, the world at large in havoc. But all we do is hope for the best , that all these, shall soon pass. let us all take personal precaution, rather than wait on the government to do so for us. Prevention is better than cure.