Ceiling (Old Wounds IV)

White sheet covering my torso
I am laughing
Because I know
Something about Christ
And his love for me
I smile.
I am free.

But I can feel the cracks
The ones I had spent months filling
Split up again
Opening wide
Embracing the pain
I am struggling to cover up

I smile
I look up
Thinking of Christ
His Love.

Perhaps there's salvation for people like me too.

Old Wounds III

Dear Lovers,
Thank you.
I am where I am because of you.
You have been the best teachers I could ask for
Eagerly teaching me what Love is not.

Love loves me.
She waited patiently for 17 years to have me.

Love loves me.
She freed me,
restored my dignity
my faith

Love loves me.

Love loves me.

She loves me.

And for you boy-who-broke-my-heart
Who started it all,
I take back the power I gave you.
You can no longer hurt me
I don't need you to love me
You no longer have any space in my heart
Or mind
I free myself of you.

Thank you for rejecting me.

Old Wounds II

I am on a merry-go-round
Turning and turning and turning
Nothing makes sense
The trees merge with the wind
That rests its hands on my cheeks
The pain in my chest becomes the cold, hard, ground
Turning round and round
It is all a blur.

Strangers
Familiar in their haziness
In their joining with the green and grey
Sit next to me,
Waiting expectantly.
Did they sense I have something to offer?
Were they told I have nothing to lose?

The first re-orients me to grinding
Bum on crotch, wind that waist
Leave no room for dissatisfaction.
The second wanted to hit it with a geek
Said I had become a beauty
(A lie. It was the year I had the worst acne outbreak)
I didn't care for his words.
I cared for his kisses,
for the ups and downs he could offer
to the round and round.

There was the third, the fourth, the fifth

The one who wanted to see me naked

There was fake laughter

And the silliness of youth

There was me

Faceless, 

Nameless,

An object of gratification,

In the round and round

In the green and grey.

Old Wounds I

A 14 year old stole my heart
While we rocked back and forth to
Daddy Owen's brother's music,
His front on my untainted behind
My heart pounding
Breathless, unable to speak,
I try laugh coquettishly
Like the popular girls with big boobs do.
Never had I been so close to a boy
So close that his breath tickled my ear
So close that I could hear the thump-hump of his heart
So close that it only took the slight swish of my arm to touch his.

We swayed a while
Till his hands
Dissatisfied with lying limply by his sides
Grabbed me by the waist
Drew me closer
To the moistness of his breath
To the ticklish feeling of my hair brushing on my neck
To groans and whisperings about beauty
To the uncomfortable button pushing on my butt.

3 or 4 weeks later,
Right after we have finished KCPE,
Right after turning down a suitor,
Right after I have declared my love,
He will rip my heart out
Hand it over to the prettiest girl in our class
And love her instead.

Dishonesty

Writer's block. I wonder whether I should call it that when I don't consider myself a writer. Good writing is something too beautiful, too genius to call my scribbling (and can I call typing scribbling really?) that. Besides, we hardly write stories. We type them now. Does that mean that no one can be called a writer anymore? Should we call them typers or typists now?

Back to what I was saying. I do not believe I am a writer or can be one anymore. I think beautiful reading-worthy work always contains an element of honesty. Writing in a sense is autobiographical, an avenue for the author to leave their mark. I have lost that, that bit of me that is peculiar in my work. I am no longer honest and I don't know if I could possibly be that.

The Sick Rose

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

O Rose thou art sick. 

The invisible worm, 

That flies in the night 

In the howling storm: 

Has found out thy bed 

Of crimson joy: 

And his dark secret love 

Does thy life destroy.

I don't know why but this poem has haunted me since my lecturer brought it to class about a month ago for us to analyze. Maybe it's because my lecturer kept on hinting at what a mischievous lover he used to be when he was at campus. Maybe it's because when we talked about it, we unanimously accepted that the persona was addressing a woman and it was only women who could get destroyed by love. Perhaps it is because I am a woman and my greatest fear is to be destroyed by love. I imagine me, plunging myself into passionate affair, losing my identity and exchanging it for his. I imagine that I forget to hold my own opinions, to think without thinking about what he thinks. I see myself  letting go of my dreams, hopes, and  desires for his. I imagine being silly enough to have sex, then to have sex without protection. I imagine myself pregnant, at a crossroads- should I keep it or abort? I imagine the shame, the hateful words that will come my way. My family is disappointed. My mother, she is contemplating forcing me to marry my lover. She is angry, not at me really, but at fate for letting history repeat itself. I imagine walking into church unsure whether to smile or cry. I see my friends, unsure of what to say. Should they congratulate or condemn me? I see myself alone. Lover does not bear the proof an illicit affair.

I am not silencing you.

But…

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

But you are.

BUT YOU ARE.

A Pawn In A Man's Game

I'm taking an African Drama course this semester. Today we were talking about Ebrahim Hussein's Kinjeketile. If you're East African, you must know about Kinjeketile Ngwale, the guy who led the Majimaji rebellion against the Germans. So the play Kinjeketile  is pulled out from that guy.

Anyway, my lecturer and I begin to talk about rape in society. We talk about how soldiers rape women in Kenya - especially in those areas in which cattle rustling is prevalent - yet they go unpunished. We talk about the incident of Ngugi's wife being sexually assaulted during their previous visit in 2004. My lecturer argues that the assault was aimed at Ngugi and it was meant to humiliate and make him feel less of a man. I agree with him. The action was meant to hurt Ngugi and create a sense of helplessness, weakness and powerlessness.

He steers us back to the play. There is an episode where a female character is raped. The men silently watch her being carried away. They do not speak up. They do not fight for their daughter. They helplessly watch as one of their own is defiled. The mother of this character calls the men "women", stripping them of their masculinity. My lecturer argues that the rape scene is symbolic of the taking away the masculinity of a man. He argues that raping someone's woman messes up with the psychology of the man; it makes them feel less of a man. And that is the surest way of defiling a society; screw the woman.

He also mentioned something interesting. According to Freud, the male genitalia is the surest representation of the privileged sex and symbolizes the power that comes with it. Thus, men are always striving to become men, that is, to become powerful, just like their genitalia represents. Because of this power that men need to harness, women become important tools. They must be subdued. They must be controlled. They must be lesser beings. And if our enemy needs to be humiliated, defile and shame their women; leave them feeling helpless.

I feel like women have been pawns in men's power play, in their need to show who is stronger. I hate it. Is that all we are?

Christian

Choked. Tormented by the rituals, the small mindedness of us, the pretense.

Suffocating. Feeling the need to hold my breath. Fear. Someone might see the doubt crowding- creeping, crawling at my skin. A flood of whos and whys and whats. I smile.


Immense urge to escape. I no longer see God in me.

I'm reading on female circumcision today. It seems that the main reason it's practiced is to "purify" the woman and prevent her from being promiscuous. I think the creator(s) of this terrible thing were afraid. They saw a woman- beautiful, proud, confident. She was aware that she's a sexual being and liked, no loved, it. She wasn't sorry for her existence and this made those men uncomfortable. She intimidated them, made them pine for her. She never made excuses for who she was. This angered them.
And so they decided that they needed to bring this wonderful woman down to their level of inferiority and powerlessness. They decided that they needed to take something from her, to show her that she is nothing, to make her need them. And so they cut off her clitoris. When this did not silence her, they cut of her lips. But her head remained held high. And when they saw this, they sewed her vagina and left only a little hole (perhaps remembering that she was a tool for their pleasure).

They did all this out of fear. They couldn't handle a phenomenal woman.

Phenomenal Woman

BY MAYA ANGELOU

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. 

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size   

But when I start to tell them, 

They think I’m telling lies. 

I say, 

It’s in the reach of my arms, 

The span of my hips,   

The stride of my step,   

The curl of my lips.   

I’m a woman 

Phenomenally. 

Phenomenal woman,   

That’s me. 

I walk into a room 

Just as cool as you please,   

And to a man, 

The fellows stand or 

Fall down on their knees.   

Then they swarm around me, 

A hive of honey bees.   

I say, 

It’s the fire in my eyes,   

And the flash of my teeth,   

The swing in my waist,   

And the joy in my feet.   

I’m a woman 

Phenomenally. 

Phenomenal woman, 

That’s me. 

Men themselves have wondered   

What they see in me. 

They try so much 

But they can’t touch 

My inner mystery. 

When I try to show them,   

They say they still can’t see.   

I say, 

It’s in the arch of my back,   

The sun of my smile, 

The ride of my breasts, 

The grace of my style. 

I’m a woman 

Phenomenally. 

Phenomenal woman, 

That’s me. 

Now you understand 

Just why my head’s not bowed.   

I don’t shout or jump about 

Or have to talk real loud.   

When you see me passing, 

It ought to make you proud. 

I say, 

It’s in the click of my heels,   

The bend of my hair,   

the palm of my hand,   

The need for my care.   

’Cause I’m a woman 

Phenomenally. 

Phenomenal woman, 

That’s me.

Maya Angelou, “Phenomenal Woman” from And Still I Rise. Copyright © 1978 by Maya Angelou. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

Thieving

You remember my dream about the man who was stealing my precious bag along a highway in the dead of night? I am living it everyday. I walk in a daze striving to hold on to my prize. You handed it to me, so precious, so full of promise. I was going to cherish and protect it. But with each step I take, I feel one hand on my throat sucking the breath out of me. The other slowly pries my little treasure from my grasp. I am scared. I am scared.

WAIT! 

IT'S MINE! HE GAVE IT TO ME!

But I can't shout it out. 

I don't because it's safer to have nothing to fight for, nothing to hold on to, nothing to be responsible for. 

It's safer to live in the silence of your dreams, building castles in clouds than on the solidity of chasing dreams, wrestling them down, and turning them into reality. 

I don't because I have knitted together a safety net, a substitute of the best. 

I can't. I don't. I won't.

Hands wrap themselves around my neck. I can no longer breath.

Help me.

The Year Of Vulnerability

I can already feel myself hating you. You who keeps coming to me with the same problem over and over. You who is not ashamed to fail over and over again and come back to me, every single time to tell me of your bad habits. I am beginning to hate you. You who is not like me.

I am angry. That I am sure about. What I do not know is whether I'm angry with you or myself. With for failing in the same pathetic way. With myself for lacking:

For lack of courage to fail ceaselessly like you do and still rise up.
For lack of empathy towards you.
For lack of happiness.
For lack of patience.
For lack of love.

For hating you.

It makes me hate me.


PS. This is not what I expected to write for my first blogpost of the year. Not very sunshine-y, but can we really control the Muse and its dictates? Happy New Year All.

A Tribute To The Cookin 'n' Cleanin Feminists

A friend of mine said that Virginia Woolf would grimace at what Kenyan women have reduced feminism to, that is, equality in the cooking and cleaning duty roster at home. The likes of Virginia Woolf and Ethel Smyth fought for economic, social and political equality that we women enjoy today and we shall forever be grateful. I, however, have been thinking about this new craze about- apparently its the fourth wave of- feminism. Yes, women can now vote, inherit property, become political leaders and hold the same jobs a man can. But are men and women truly equal? If they are, what are these fourth wave feminists fighting for or against?

In my opinion the fourth wave feminists are fighting against mindsets and culture. There are laws set up to alleviate the position of women yet they are not abided to, primarily because as a society, we are still stuck on the ideals that a man and woman cannot be placed on the same level economically and socially. Although women are being empowered, many of them are still urged to make themselves smaller or lesser than the men in their lives lest they bruise the egos of these men. Personally, as a 20 year old still trying to figure out what it means to be a woman, I know I have experienced this. I have worn false humility (or is it modesty?) so that I don't come out as too smart or too aggressive or so that I don't come off as an 'ajua' as my friends would say. Maybe what this fourth generation feminists are fighting for is a mentality in society in which every individual views men and women as having the same capabilities and being able to achieve the same things. Maybe they are fighting for people to view every individual as a human being first than at their gender. In this way, there will be true equality.

However, people may argue that men and women were created differently. Their wiring and structure definitely is different and therefore, may not be able to perform the same tasks with the same level of skill. This is true; men were designed to be more muscular than women; women were designed to be birthers; and how men think is completely different from the way women think. They even have a couple of different hormones, men and women. But I don't believe that the varied wiring and plumbing of women from men affects their ability to become great leaders, politicians, CEOs, inventors and every other job that has been traditionally left for men. I also don't think that because it is believed men have a tough time expressing emotions that they can't be great care givers.

The Kenyan feminists must also believe that men can be great care givers. Why would they fight so much for equal sharing of household chores? I don't understand why this shouldn't be a feminist fight. For our children to view men and women as equals, shouldn't they see their parents treating each other so? This means that the way spouses speak to and treat each other is important. Also, it is important to practically show children that no job is too small or big for them, by both parents taking part in household chores. Studies show that a child's worldview is formed in the first five years of their existence. Therefore, whatever is implied through the actions and words of a child's first caregivers is vital in teaching about gender roles and role allocation in society.

My friend is tired of all the Kenyan feminists out there. The more I think of feminism, the more I am convinced that there is a place for these women who have been silenced in ways different from the times of the first generation of feminists. So I guess this is for these feminists, fighting for social equality, fighting in your homes, at the office or wherever. We need more of you. Keep on.

Ebook Review: The Other Experiment

I have never written a review before so this will definitely not be a traditional review. But I really need to tell you about this ebook! First because I know the guy who wrote it and he's been asking (read begging) me to write about it so that he can become a slightly richer guy. And then, because you have to read this ebook.

Why? Because this book is about you. I know the author of the ebook may not know you or the story of your life. But he is human and he may know a thing or two about humanity that you can definitely relate to.  The reason that I believe that this novel is for you is at one point in your life you must felt left out, alienated from a group of people, be it because of your colour, gender, name, freakish tendencies or just because this group decided it didn't like you. So at one point in your life you have felt or been the other, an anomaly in a people or a group of people. And I believe this is what Ras Mengesha seeks to examine in his ebook. He says that The Other Experiment is an experimental "novel" that uses mixed media to "interrogate otherness" in our society. 

I believe at one point or another we have felt like the other in our society or we know someone who has been ostracized for being different. So we can all somehow relate to the contents of this ebook. Then again, we can question our society and our personal prejudices against the Other. And hopefully we can seek ways to change what we don't like to see in our society. We can stop being silent about the atrocities that take place to the Other. The Other Experiment, has the power to change how we see our world and motivate us to make it a better place. 

So I would definitely advice to get a copy of this ebook. It's very affordable, just 200 shillings! Trust me, it will be the best 200 bob you will spend this month. 

If interested in buying the ebook and/or reading Ras Mengesha's work, check out Ras Mengesha's blog: https://rasmengesha.wordpress.com/ and for the ebook: https://rasmengesha.wordpress.com/the-other-experiment-3/

Enjoy!

Romans 8

You say that nothing can keep me from your love

But today as I

Spat on Harold’s ugly pimply face

Stole mother’s cakes and put on a chase

Sat on Tom to have life at my pace

I could not feel any further from your love.

You say that you see beyond sin

To a God who became man, who

Trotted the dusty, worldly streets

And slept in many a barn.

He who washed his follower’s feet

And preached salvation at every feast

So that you could call me son

You say that when this God-like Man

Hang himself on a tree

He rescued me

That when he declared, ‘It is finished!’

Indeed, it was finished.

And I, slave of the do’s and don’ts

Of the society

I, carrier of the yoke of shame and guilt,

Of frustration and betrayal,

Of the past, present and future,

I am free.

Yes, nothing can keep me from you,

Neither angels nor demons,

Neither the past nor the future,

Neither death nor life,

Nothing in all creation

Can separate us from the love

That is in Christ Jesus.

Love, Religion and Confusion

About a month ago my sister asked me whether I would date a man who didn't share the same religious beliefs as I did even if they had the same core values. I was completely certain that I couldn't. I argued that he couldn't have the same core values as I did if he wasn't a Christian. My sister was disappointed. My family has boasted to being the most open-minded family in Nairobi county, with the traveling and what-not, so this notion of mine seemed conservative and ridiculous. I just thought she couldn't get it because she doesn't subscribe to any religion.

Then I read The Obscure Logic Of The Heart. It's a story about a girl's struggle to reconcile her religious beliefs with her love for a man who doesn't share similar beliefs. I was taken on a journey where the couple had to make so many sacrifices and compromises in order to be together. The girl had to lie to her parents and was almost disowned by them, the guy had to tolerate the girl's indecisiveness. What mostly caught my attention was how the girl had to reconcile her beliefs (what her God thought of unbelievers- she was Muslim by the way) and her love for the 'heathen'. In a lot of ways she went against some of her principles, which I found a bit sad.

As I read the book I could help but ask whether I'd date boyfriend were he not a Christian. This was a tough question to answer after I put into perspective the depth of my feelings for him. I really do care about boyfriend and he is an great guy. But is it the religion that has made him who he is? Is it religion that has attracted me to boyfriend? I cannot say that it is religion that has fully attracted him to be. If that was the case, I would be attracted to many Christian boys. But there is an extent as to his love for God that has made me like him. I don't think I'll ever know. I will have to be in that situation to understand it. 

Anyway, I do love how the book ends:

Every conquest, loss or rejection leaves its trace. We love according to what the heart has been taught. We love in the shadow- sometimes benign, sometimes malevolent- of every disappointment, betrayal or fulfillment. We love- and no god can control the feeling or mitigate the consequences.

I guess the one thing that cuts across all of humanity is love. After objectively reading what I've just typed, it does make me squirm a but primarily because I believe that God is love and there is no way God would be against anyone loving another. That has been His mission since He created the world. And Paul in Romans 8:38-39 says it wonderfully:

38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing To Call Our Own

At thirty seven we didn't have much.

Not even a baby was under our name.

Nyayo!

Njeri holds him. He sobs and cries out in pain like his limbs are being torn off his body, one by one. She holds him as he weeps in regret, as he shouts.  If there was sackcloth and ash nearby, she thinks, he would have worn it. He always was dramatic.

Nyayo! he had always said with a sort of manic passion; his fist hitting the table with force. Then he'd laugh uncontrollably. She had never understood why he had such a passion for that word. Maybe it reminded him of his father. Maybe he had gotten tired of hearing the children at school say it so many times, like it was their second name. But there had always been a strange fire in his eyes when he said nyayo. And Njeri had thought, hoped, that he'd join the Mwakenya group that she had heard Karanja had joined. They were her salvation, her only way to freedom.

She strokes his head, comforts him, and soothes him. She tries to tell him that it wasn't his fault, that all will be well. She tries to bring herself to say that they could escape to Tanzania, like all other exiles. But she can't. She holds him with her head turned away, holding back the bitterness and disgust that is ripping up a storm within her, that rocks them back and forth. All she wants is to turn off the broken record that is his voice, repeating the one word she couldn't stand him say: sorry.

Njeri looks at the man crying on her lap, streams of tears and mucus fall from his face to her once clean white dress. She wants to spit on his face. She wants to move him away and tell him to quit dirtying her dress, just as he has dirtied the nation. She wants to call him what he truly is: a monster. The grinch of independent Kenya! He was no longer her husband or the father of her children. He stopped being human the moment he confessed to being a torturer. He stopped being human when he became a murderer.

She never understood why he came home so late. Surely a headteacher at a primary school did not have so much work On many nights he would arrive and dash to the bathroom. Njeri would hear him retching his bowels out. He used to say that he was making room for Njeri's good cooking. At times she'd laugh, delighted that he loved her cooking. Other times she'd consider spiking his food with deworming medicine. Right now, as he sobbed uncontrollably, she thought that maybe it wasn't the cries of mourners that were the sound of death; maybe it was retching.

She had promised never to leave him. He had promised to follow in the footsteps of God and his father. Those had been their vows. Like Moses breaking the stone tablet, Njeri realised that they were breaking their vows, him holding one side of the stone and she the other. All because he has chosen to follow a different kind of nyayo.

Submission

He was always told that it was not in the beating of a woman that made her subservient; it was in the manipulation. Manipulation came in many forms, one just had to know which made a particular woman bend over backwards for you. He had chosen love- affirmation might be a better word- as his strategy.

And it worked.