Feral Yearnings

Is it bad to wonder, what wandering in this foreign land would feel like? I want to trace the paths of her journeys without her mouth moving.

A perfectly formed mouth stood before me. Perfect not because of its shape, but because of the kind of words it seemed capable of verbalizing; Confident words, words laced with nuance, words whose breaths I could hear. Words that could form ideas of stories in my mind. I travelled to moments I would have on the rooftop of an apartment building in whose small corner sits even my smaller apartment. Of moments spent swallowing small sips of Pilsner while sharing stories with the bearer of the mouth.

Stories I couldn’t figure out. Stories I knew I would love because I knew the kind of reaction they would elicit in me. I am a lover of stories, I would love to love a bearer of stories. A daughter of lands that are yet to be defined. A child who seeks her journeys in the twinkles of the sky, comfortable with quiet walks in the desert sand. A woman whose feet could sense the movement of a desert snake several metres away, whose toes would curl by hearing the snap of a scorpion’s tail.

I want to seek foreign lands on her body, taste stories in languages I can never understand on her lips. I want to make her moan in sounds even the creatures of the night will stop to listen to. To make her fingers and nails search for lost lands, lost memories and seek redemption in the flesh of my back. I don’t want her to call my name. I want her to mouth, and have her mouth freeze with the lips perfectly formed in the mouthing of my name. Freezing the moment. I am a traveller, a nomad who travels through time. I like my moments frozen in time. I want her cocktail of emotions frozen on her lips.

I want to remember. Because travellers’ moments get buried in sand over time. It is moments I want to keep. I will have crossed over to the forbidden. I would have broken something. She would have left something in me. I want to take something from her. I have to take something from her. I want to make the convergence of her thighs scream my name whenever any other man will make her climax in future. Because she will never hit that peak. I want to be the high she will always seeks in other men’s bodies.

Comings and Goings

Time stood still. Last year, for a period of nine months or so, time stood still for me. It also moved. At times, I can vaguely recall a few instances during the said period. But mostly, it is a blank. It is as if I was in one long comma from which I woke up after 9 months, or someone took a chunk of my memories, and I can’t recover them.

Normally, when I write, the kaheadline is the last thing that goes on the article.  I drag my typing through the pages till the story makes some semblance of sense. Then, based on what inspired it, and the general direction of the story, I cook up a topic, just when I am about to publish. Not for this one. This time, the kaheadline came first. I had been toying about writing about last year; something, anything, when it all glared at me from the screen of my computer. I was watching Californication, and there, in one of the titles of the episodes was a summation of my last year, or life; Comings and Goings.

The Ones We Lose Before They Leave

This is for the ones we lose before they leave

The suns that rise but bring no sunlight

For the faces that were once familiar

That were once smooth

In which we look, we seek for an inch of recognition

that are now burrows in whose depths lie the unknown

that which we don’t want to know, that which we may never know,

for it exists not perhaps

this is for those who stay but are never there

those we kill over and over again because we fear loss

for we know by their leaving we are changed

but are afraid of what we will become after their departure

 

this is for the ones who leave but we never lose

their leaving reminds us of the transient nature of life, of everything

we don’t like transient, we don’t like quick sands

we like stability

like the recurring theme of hope

it is for the lost, whom we didn’t know we had lost,

because they are still there

but also not there

their presence defined us

their absence are wounds covered in black blood clots

wounds that we ignore

ignoring them makes the pain bearable

this is for all blood clots that make living living

 

this is for the ones we lost before they left

whose eyes have hope

whose eyes tell us to find them and bring them back

those that tell us to hope

but hopes are like dreams,

and dreams are relative

and loss is not.

The Other Side of Darkness

“It is a painful thing, even to a father.it is worse to a mother.” That is what mama told me. That is what she still tells me every time I am quiet. Contemplative. She calls it moody. But it hurts, it always have. The memories are there, fresh. Nothing seems to fade as days go by. They only become stronger. I relive the occasion every day, especially when I am about to sleep. I do not summon it. It bullies my brain into submission. My mind is used now. Sometimes, it waits for a trigger, at times it triggers itself. But it is part and parcel of me now. What is life other than memories?

How Africans Kiss?

No, how do Indians kiss? I am an African, so I know how I kiss. I don’t know whether every African kisses like me. No, I know. Every African does not kiss like me. So, I don’t know why people have these discussions. What are they interested in? Is it the politics of the kiss in Africa? I know the politics of kissing in Africa. They are diverse as the regions, but some cut across. They are tough politics, as are the politics of PDA (of which kissing is part), and the politics of sex in its many forms, dynamics and layers.

Last week, I attended a session at Storymoja Literary Festival aptly titled, How Africans Kiss? And,  I heard curious and interesting statements;

Faa

https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_captain/8668777070/in/photostream/

I want a daughter for a first child.  I know, several men prefer sons. But I want a daughter. She will provide a balance in my life that no other woman will; wife, mother, sister. She will alter the way I interact with women; she will be the prism through which I view female issues. She will be the reason I will never ignore a buzz, no matter how slight, of my phone.

Kakamega; I Spoke Too Soon

The Crying Stone of Kakamega is the region’s most recognizable features
Source: Wikimedia

Once, while in college, my friend and I passed outside a salon on our way to a bar. At that time, I had dreadlocks.  I quietly surveyed the salon as it had a big picture of someone with locks on its glass walls. Then my friend asked.

“Have you seen that chick with her hair in the drier?”

Travelling to the Bathroom of the gods

The lushness of Gusiiland

I travel to Kisii often. Every Kisii worth his salt travels to Kisii often.  It is my home. Somewhere within those green bushes that cover those tiny hills, my umbilical cord is buried. I am a country boy.  I feel happy and lapse into a stupor of inactivity, lack of deep thought and randomness every time I am at this place. Life is so simple and familiar. And food, there is always food. Visit a friend, they offer you food, or tea. Visit a relative, they start preparing something for you. Well, not always but you get the drift.