juvenile delinquent

Life has been unfair to me

This can’t be all I was intended to be

Doesn’t this life hold much more?

Can’t I make it out of this hole?

I am 16 years old

I want new clothes

New shoes

I want a phone!

Why would my parents not provide?

I can find ways to make things work

This nonsense that surrounds me must stop

I am tired of my poverty

I am enraged by my struggles

I shall make it out

By any means

I picked an axe from my neighbor’s farm

I exchanged it for meat and ham

The butcher doesn’t know

Neither does my mum

I need a bigger take

I am 18 years for God’s sake!

I nicked car headlights outside the mosque

Four headlights for thirty smokes

That is a good deal no?

 I am making my name hello!

And twenty years that may not be so bad a show

I have just received a briefcase of gold

From a white man who was shaken and old

I stood straight took instructions and strutted out bold

I am a go-between

From me to the big man across the creek

This is the big break I seek

I am twenty two years

My future doesn’t have to look so bleak

I moved up the ladder

Got a gun and I rule wider

I have my own sixteen, eighteen, twenty and twenty two year olds

But I will not live to tell my tale

For at twenty four

I hear the knocks on my mother’s door

I had come to upcountry to lay low

But someone must have mouthed.

For tomorrow I will be no more

I am a thief.

written with a 16yo thief, I encountered to day, in mind. May this 16 year old make better choices before life chooses the sequence for him.

#100daysofblogging #Day 6

p.s: I lacked an appropriate photo...

tell me how to stay calm

The devil in the details

Like the thought of knowing it is Grandpa

Not the neighbors not a trusted friend but Grandpa

It is the knowing, she said

It is the seeing and having to live with it

It would have been easier numb!

She cried,

Clutched at the hems of her dress

Bit her teeth

Let them flow

Tears, hot

No need to touch to know

Calm down, he urged

How? She asked.

Just tell me how to go to grand ma and not hate her,

For watching

For turning her back

And pretending that you were insane

Insane people wouldn’t know where to touch

Grope

And tear

Insane people wouldn’t know to switch off the lights

To tread with care

It would hurt

I know it would,

But it would hurt a little less

If I didn’t have to remember every feel of the hands over my skin

If it wasn’t so familiar to the arms,

The arms I ran into when thunder struck

The arms that shielded me from the big bad ram

The arms that were to protect me from harm

Those arms grabbed me firm,

Those arms pulled at my perm

Those callous coarse arms

That I washed off the earth and cleaned from digging arrow roots

 Held me back and shut my mouth

Shut in fact my sanity

For nothing would have made me scream,

Nothing would have made me cry

I was stunned

I was frozen

I was scared,

Tell me how I am to stay calm

How!?

How!?

How!?

Give me answers she prodded,

I am sorry, he said.

I know you are its all you ever are!

I want to stay calm. Tell me how to do it.

I am sorry,

I failed you; he added moving a step closer

Her hand moved from hem

She stood firm

Fixed her eyes on his

She cried reminiscing the days he looked at those eyes

And the how she once loved to see them each morning

She was at war within

He was at war too

Another step

She cocked the shotgun looked even sterner

I will do it her stance said

I don’t want to do it, don’t make me her eyes said

He inched even closer

Barrel on his chest pressing at his aged sternum

I am sorry, I really am

STOP SAYING THAT! She barked

Tears and mucus spattered everywhere

She looked away from his tearing eyes

In that fraction he pulled the trigger

Bursting his chest open

He went as silent as he’d come into her room

No!

She hit at his lifeless frame

You can’t

You don’t get to do that

You still owe me answers!

She opened her mouth to taste the steel

She never knew what it tasted like

There wasn’t enough time for the thought to be registered.

To all the children going through darkness your sunshine will come, it will be okay I pray.

what if I was a cat

I wished I was a cat
Oh! wait..
I wished!
It got to a point that bad I actually wished
I wanted to be something anything
Rather than that which I was
Or was becoming
That who I was
Or was becoming
I needed an escape
A route out
Yet non forthcoming
I wished I was a cat then I could blame it on my other lives
I do not know
I did not know
But I wanted to
I want to know

I wished I was a cat
For it would explain
It will explain the sudden change..
The anger
The pain
The shame
The despair
The disdain
The games
Aaaarrghh
I want to be a cat
With playthings
and a dedicated playtime
With milk
and endless period of time to decide
I wished I was a cat
I am wishing I am a cat
It must be really bad.

I am human
I am a being that walks on twos
and have to fend for my food
I just want those nine lives so bad
So that my mistakes can be erased even forgotten
I am human capable of making stupid decisions consecutively
and though I lack the nine lives for trial and error
I know that no one is so perfect as to live without mistakes
No one is so saintly as to be deficient of blemish
What I lack in nine lives I compensate in repentance
I am growing into adulthood
I will have to rid me off this childishness
I can never be a cat
But I can make my decisions better
and I could do with the silence of a cat too
no more what if I was a cat?

 

my Kenya unplugged

The light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off

There is no inspiration
no brilliance
no sparkles or eureka moments

its just a sullen desperation
an oozing of negation

its a pitiful sight
watching them in the shadows of light
eking in darkness
fearing for their own plight

its a tad disgusting
sometimes bemusing
as we await for their mouth to part
and their ever depressing monologue starts

a lie
a hypocrisy coated of democracy
dressed in a black suit scarlet shirt
and of course, with white polka dots, a black tie
feeding the hungry masses with the nonsense from a rank high

a cordial smile
followed by an incoherent speech that runs a mile
punctuated by senseless quotes
serving to punch in awe and importance to a resolved clique
where democracy is a miss

then comes force
like revenge, its served COLD!!
to the young alike to the old
from trucks, on foot
and on horse backs
its hell in reality
ignited by the mere spark of the fool
the common people's fool!
Now trailed by their own trained 'army'
his words hang on to like some important developmental tool

the same fool
that was described by many as buffoon
now herald and worshiped like some god of the moon

fathers standing armed to protect their homes, their kids and kid mothers
mothers rushing to cover the kids
kids cowering behind
fearing for their safety
'soldiers'
'soldiers'
'soldiers'
creating new frontiers

a critical family change
fathers now stand down and are marched around their homes
mothers are slaves and factories for producing more 'soldier' kids
kids are forced into war with themselves and their parents

all in pursuit of power
the crave for a money shower
a loss of principles
a succession of similar principals
submissive governance
oppressive rule
dressed in a black suit, scarlet shirt and of course, with white polka dots, a black tie

another lie
this time with titles, ranks and degrees attached

why should we wait to jump out of the pan
yet now we fry
shall we wait to roast
and have our children lament
watching them propose a new toast?

The light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off

what shall we do?

...
photo credit

stains

Pony tails
Innocent
Buckled waist
Very chaste
Thoughts I'd want to erase
Of a beautiful mind corrupted with kin
A red stain on white sheets
A nightmare that will never cease
Of an innocence robbed with ease
Of a demon lurking within
Of a saint

a saint that never exists
When did it fit for a man to desire the fruit of his loins
Flesh of his flesh

I want to taste the world
To numb the pain of my past
I want to partake of passion: unbridled and fast
To crash my body beyond for my temple they already stole
On white heavy cotton sheets
When he held me by my pleats
And i smiled up at him and he smiled

Mum was away for the night
And he had plans for me
I was naive
But you should see me now
I have become the woman you made of me
You stole my temple from me
On those pretty white heavy cotton sheets
And i hope you could explain the stain

I wish you could feel my pain
When I am held up abused and tied to chains
It feels nice
But the joy melts like ice
And the dreams rule my nights

I forgave you father,
I washed of the stain from my heart
Soak your sheets,
Buy new sheets
But teach me how to look at you as a daughter would
for now I’m just a twelve year old woman in your eyes.