nilichoandika

Of all the times they asked why

October 3rd, 2016

The one question people ask is “why don’t you leave?” Some who are bold just ask “why do you choose to stay?” But why is the ultimate kick in the gut and it hurts more than the ones you receive from the one you love when no one is watching.

Why is always followed by a good defense starting with because…and what follows are a cloud of thoughts, he didn’t mean it, he’s a good man, he loves me, he loves the kids, he cares and maybe I pushed him too far, I know he did wrong but no one’s perfect, he won’t do it again, he said he was sorry. These thoughts comfort you when your ribs are too painful for you to turn. They soothe you when it hurts to smile. They are the ones that cloak you with warmth when your heart starts to freeze. They stay with you through every kick, toss, slap and blackout. On the kitchen floor, in the living room, in the bedroom, in the bathroom, in bed. They stay until someone’s gut feeling is brave enough to condemn you why don’t you leave? Before their courage, they saw you and saw a vision. You had the sweetest man. He bought you flowers, took you to dinner, bought you fine dresses, held you close in public gatherings, kept his eyes on you wherever you went, called you every day,sent you text messages. They saw a vision. A blurred vision.

Image courtesy of WeHeartIt

When one why turns into two and three and suddenly the whole world, you hide in your hole. It hurts to lift your head up. It wounds to admit that love maimed you. It hurts worse than the punches and kicks and you hide not because you are scared but because the dark is familiar. You are at home with your demons. What they see is a woman too weak to fight back. They see a woman who is stupid enough to die at the hands of a pathetic excuse of a man. They hate the man for hitting you but are disgusted that you’d stay. They look at you and say I wish you would just get up and leave but they do not give you a doze of the courage they seem to have. You scream in your head for it is not the punches that hurt but that they were preceded by love. They came after paradise, but you know better. You know nothing will ever change him or his ways, and you know that if you stay even one more day you’d be six feet under. You think of all this and smile because a part of you knows that death would be a relief. What of the kids? Who will look after them? Suddenly an alarm goes off and you are in Kenyatta Hospital screaming your head off ready to deliver Henry into this world. He is four. He will soon know better, and stand up to his father and then what? You think and think until your hole becomes too small and you have to step into the light.

Somewhere along the line, he comes and he’s fuming, it’s worse than last week and he’s just gotten a call from your Aunt Millicent. The one who can smell a pest a mile away. She sends you her love and you know he is not happy. He says the house smells damp. Did you clean? Yes. Did you have lunch with your cousins in town? Yes. At what time because I called you and you said you’d be home? At two. What did you talk about? Cindy’s wedding, she wanted to know if I could be a bridesmaid. What did you say? Yes. And he smiles and turns just as his smile fades to hit you across the cheek. You take it but this time you don’t scream or plead. He grabs your braids and pushes you to the floor. You land on your butt and he kicks your knees and waist, just above your hips and he kicks until you stop moving. You lie there swimming in a cloud of darkness and it feels like home. What does the world know? What do they know about death or tragedy or humiliation? What do they know about grief? You swim your way to another day and it hurts everywhere. You suddenly want someone to ask how does it make you feel? You would say hell doesn’t even come close. You have to get up. You have to get up. It is time. You have to get up, lift your head up, get your children and walk out that door.

You have to get up. You can get up.

You can take one step, two steps, three steps and walk out.

You can.

You can.

You can and it’s all you think about whenever you think of all the times they asked why.
The one I call Daisy

September 27th, 2016

She’s gone and suddenly she’s everywhere.

Pets can break your heart. Kittens to be precise, but I am at odds and writing about her is wounding myself over and over again. We rescued a kitten two months ago and named her Daisy. At first I found her annoying because she was everywhere, in my face, on my books,snoozing on my clothes,sprawling on my laps as I watched a movie, jumping on my feet and always purring.Then, I went to sleep with her beside me, always woke up to her face, played along with her,fed her and let her sleep on books.

Yesterday, as I was shutting the door I heard her scream and looking down I saw her neck caught between the hinge. It was 8:07pm and mom was watching an episode of CSI. Daisy twitched and kicked and kicked and lay still.
Life’s fragile and she fought, God she fought. We watched her take her last breath and buried her out in the garden, two steps beneath my bedroom window.

Two women digging away into the dirt at night, and I held her and wrapped her in my favorite cloth. She did not sleep beside me. She did not drink from her bowl today, and who knew that this little kitten would break my heart, who knew that she’d die in my hands, who knew this of the one I called Daisy?
to be inspired

September 24th, 2016

When you wake up and write for hours and cannot take a bathroom break, you’re on a high.

It’s so great you want to dance in your nightdress and so you do.

It’s as intoxicating as being kissed by the guy you’ve been crushing on in the rain, just outside your house.

It’s like,

It’s like,

It’s like heaven in fall

Clouds and rain,

Laughter and bliss,

Love and kisses,

It’s what it feels like to be inspired and you go with the flow until something like spell check, boredom or a blackout bursts your bubble. But one thing is certain,just like that kiss, that taste of freedom, it never leaves you.
Cup of tea

September 18th, 2016

I am reckless,

when restless,

not thoughtless,

just reckless.

The words come out,

The hands move about,

The feet pace up and down,

Until it all comes out.

I am reckless,

not thoughtless,

and that might not be your cup of tea.
After the Ashes

September 15th, 2016

Maria, I told you that our journey began long before my feet could meet the ground, but I was never prepared for the life of bitterness that followed. The bravest man is the one assured of his death. Wakoli, the village shoe maker was such a man. You never met him, but Wakoli could look at your shoe and stitch it in one motion, but the same hands could not hold a woman’s hand without his knees shaking. It came as a surprise when he suddenly said that he wanted to return to his father’s land. We sat with him as one of his hands went into the shoe and the other the needle, pulling and fastening and fixing. He would speak of his ancestral home. “A man has no friends in this world.” He would pick another shoe, look at it and smile. “You can tell a lot about a man’s shoes. How he takes care of the things that protect his feet as he leaves footprints on the earth. Some shoes speak of love, others, misery, but my Father’s home is awaiting me.” Wakoli was not a day older than your Father, but his back was bent from all the stitching he did. He carried his sack of shoes waiting for his clients to come for them. The sack was old and torn but never did a shoe fall from it. Wakoli was such a man Maria. The wind. He came and went as he pleased. Everyone at home knew him, but even so, he was the only one who saw me beneath the busaa.

No, that is not true, he was one of the few who saw me, your mother- Nyanam, the only woman who could carry ten pots of water and not complain of a stiff neck come dusk. She would laugh and you would believe Heaven was with you. When she cooked, the food would warm your soul, and she never let me sleep hungry. She would come to the busaa den looking for me. “Shemeji, you have to eat what I made today, you know you are the only one who appreciates my cooking, eh? Now how about a few mouthfuls then you can continue quenching your thirst?” When she returned home, your Father would be waiting by the door, his rage ten times his size. She would start singing praises of him. He was her one and only gem. He worked day and night to keep her young. He gave her what she wanted before she even asked. She would sing and praise his looks; his handsome face, strong hands, big feet, big heart and she would go on until your father shrunk back to his size.

PS: Definitely a working progress, let’s see how the story goes.
Intrigue

September 13th, 2016

You know there is story when two people’s eyes meet across a table, in a matatu, a church and one person smiles. You know one of them is crazy when they give that death stare. You also know that you are probably imagining things when they wave and shout ‘hi!’

But, you are officially mental if you think that there is a story where there’s none. However, if you write, then you are the lucky one percent that gets away with it and it happened to me.

I was in Naivas supermarket here in Kisumu going through a selection of braids. They have this simple aisle that is packed with nothing but braids; blue, brown, red, maroon, grey, white, green, black, gold, short, long. You can have your pick of braids in less than ten minutes plus the prices are two shillings less than other supermarkets. I braid often. Guess that helps me save ten shillings for every five packs.

So, there I am with this wild afro going through braids when I hear someone say, “niaje, madam!”

I’ve had a long battle with this phrase “Madam” for though it is better than ‘tsk! tsk!’ or ‘wewe!’ or ‘tsss!’ it always reminds me of primary school teachers. There is always this spitfire in me that is tempted to retort, “do I look like a primary school teacher?” But, it has never come through, mainly because I prefer to confront people in a counseling session rather than in public, crowds can disappoint you.

I turn to my left and see this supermarket attendant checking out the girl right beside me. She has her earphones on and I look up at him and smile. He shrugs smiles and asks me to tap the girl, you know, to join his team in getting her attention, but the girl is busy picking braids- purple braids.

I settled for black braids and make my way to the cashier to check out. I take one look at the aisle and the guy is still checking out the girl watching her hands travel across the packs of braids, fingers caressing, gripping and then letting go of each pack. I pay for my goods and descend the stairs, wondering just how great I’d look in purple braids!
Inspiration

September 10th, 2016

Words create the anatomy of a story, but within that story there are openings that can’t be closed.

The Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
They like me

September 7th, 2016

Ruth was the kind of person whose voice you had to mine before you heard it.

I asked her, “Tell me what happened.”

She said, “Do you really want to know?”

“No, but some selfish part of me wants you to hear yourself talk about it.”

My demons like me alone. They come to me sometimes at 2A.M. or 4A.M. They don’t come empty handed. They always bring gifts. Hansel’s smiles. Shouts. Broken glass. Screeching tyres and blood. They always bring me blood and it’s everywhere. On the seat, on my lips, on my face, and he’s gone.

My demons like me alone. I think, I like them too, at least he’s still alive when they visit. So, I unwrap each gift as time goes on.

She left just like she’d come, but with each step she took, I knew she’d never stop. You cannot cage the wind. I have tried. I am still foolish to believe that I can. When the text came this morning, my knees touched the floor and for the first time in my life, I knew it to be true…you cannot cage the wind, it destroys you if you try.
September

September 5th, 2016

I met him, last year, on a day such as this.

He was seated at the corner,his eyes met mine then went back to his phone. Samsung.

Blue jeans, green t-shirt, slender long fingers like Harith Salim’s. The NTV News presenter. The kind of guy I’d buy chapo beans and watch him tear it into pieces, dip it into the beans and lick his fingers after. I love slender fingers, philosophical fingers,the kind that I can watch in action. I am attracted to eyes, and I smiled at him.

I activated the WiFi on my phone and set it aside. I ordered house coffee,single,and a muffin. I looked at him. I’m a coffee kinda girl; black, with sugar. He oozed caramel. A combination of come have a look and how about a taste. He caught me staring and I smiled again. I waited for the third time, the charm, right?
My friend Eve,walked in, all smiles and we started talking about work. When the waiter approached our table, I managed to look towards the corner, there on the table was an empty glass. I turned to Eve, to normalcy, but there’s nothing like love at first sight in September.

It’s all about falling leaves and thirty days of yearning for sunsets. I’ll stay indoors this September, dream of the guy with slender fingers and honey brown eyes. I’ll dream enough to keep me awake for thirty days and then call him just to remind him, “Do you remember how we first met?” and,watch him squirm because he forgot our anniversary.
Love

September 4th, 2016

And when the world lies on your shoulder,

When you desire your actions to be bolder,

Love.

Love your smile, your wit, your pain,

Love for it flows inside you,

But radiates on the outside.

When it seems like there is nothing great about you,

Remember, love.