My love is like a flame.
It knows your name,
Accepts your shame,
Keeps you safe from blame.
My love is like a flame,
It knows how to ignite,
Even when we don’t fight,
It gets you just right.
My love is like a flame,
Forget those lines up there and know that it knows how to keep the temperature right, a little bit of heat, a little bit of zing, a slow burn, or full on roast.
My love is like a flame, isn’t it odd that I am the one who gets consumed by it?
“How do you do that?” You asked.
I was seated reading Tyrants and sipping coffee, my legs folded beneath me and as always, my heart a steady reminder of this proximity we have.
You draw me to your weakness, and I draw you to what you could never have.
I looked up at you, my eyes casting a quick glance at the cigarette between your fingers, the pack beside you on the window sill and smiled…you let out an easy laugh, and I smiled once more, “how do I do what?”
“How do you reign in silence?” you asked.
I put the book down, walked up to you and reached for that cigarette…gently placed it in the ash tray and sat beside you.
You smiled.
Did you know that when you smile, your left eye twinkles more than the right? It’s like a star finding it’s way home, releasing the light from within.
“How is it that every time I am with you, you ask me questions that require answers beyond my comprehension?”
“You make me sound like a Philosophy class!”
“And you…you make me feel like I am attending a soul-searching session, how about that?”
“Can I have my cigarette back please? You are giving me ideas and trust me, none of them, involve the distance you’ve carefully crafted between us.”
“You still feel miles away from me?”
“You, Love, are like light…you drive away the dark, you also unveil things that I prefer to be kept hidden away from not only you and the world but also from me and that scares me…it freaks me out that as tiny as you are, you can illuminate even the parts of me that I never wanted illuminated.”
“So, I am light…”
“Love, you are nothing but light, you are what stays true in both the dark and the light and if you only knew how powerful that is…you’d never hesitate to be mine.”
You are like a confession.
I should utter you to find the release I need, but like a secret,
You choose to remain hidden.
You, are like that thought in the middle of a storm,
the silent reminder that I can let all hell break loose and I won’t die.
I wear you like a badge of honor,
Gaze upon you like a thing of wonder,
Dream of everything up yonder.
You, Stardust, are like a confession,
It’s time I utter these words and set myself free.
You, my love, are like an Afro Beat…Irresistible.
So, I’ll take my time with you,
I’ll play you like a love song,
Drink you from a cauldron,
Soak you up with reckless abandon.
You, my love are an Afro Beat,
I wish you know just how much you sing to my soul.
You once asked me, “where do you go to when you hurt?”
I smiled, a reflex, so in tune with my soul that you almost wept.
Stardust, in these echoes of silence, I travel worlds unknown to me.
You once introduced me to your friend as a ‘Vintage Soul.”
Did you mean it?
I truly wish you did for what do you say when you have no words left.
What do you shed when you have no more tears…or do you will yourself to shed many more, until your ducts are dry and withered…Stardust,
I choose to bleed on paper.
I wrote you a letter, did I ever tell you? No.
I did, I truly did and now, I find myself taking a step back, and another, and another…finding my way to the one place where I was wounded, because until I face that pain, I’ll be residing in Castles with you, smiling while resenting every bit of you.
And you…Stardust a child of the earth, you deserve better, and so do I.
You are my puzzle. Sometimes, I orbit around you until I’ve had a view of you from every angle and then I leave.
You take these exits like you do your medicine, not so well.
“How come you’ve never asked me for anything?” you ask.
“What do you mean?”
“You know…like say ask me to buy you a book, treat you to dinner or buy you something like I don’t know…the things chicks ask for.”
“Are we in a relationship?” I ask. You shrug your shoulders, look outside…it’s drizzling now, my neighbor’s cat is busy calling out for her man…sometimes she makes me wake up in the night thinking someone dumped a baby right outside my window. You follow her movements with your eyes.
Cats are your kryptonite.
Women are like newspaper leaves; each page a new story.
You smile and gently rub my feet. I know where you go to when I put you on the spot.
What astounds me is how easy it is for you to run to what wounds you, memories of a time when the one you looked up to, up and left. Remember the time I yelled at you, “I am not your Mother! I am here, I haven’t left and you are doing everything to make me leave!”
It was the only time you ever asked me “please leave…” and I was too stubborn to leave, so you left and never came back until the next morning.
You found a memory of her at the bottom of a bottle, in the warmth of another woman…and simply declared “you are too close, we’ll only be friends, I can’t let you any closer.”
Do you remember this day?
Do you remember those words?
I can taste them on my tongue. Sometimes when I close my eyes, I see your wounds and gently apply some salve to them…and you always lie there, serene, with a smile on your lips…your hand gently wrapped in mine, and in my dreams you are bliss. In my dreams we orbit each other, you are my sun, I am your sun.
In my dream every word is said through our eyes…every emotion felt through touch and when I dare to open my eyes, they are nothing but exits and orbits.
You look at me and smile, then let out another easy laugh, “I love how you go into your world when I am ready to answer your questions. Marry me, the next time you come to me, come not as a friend, or worse off a listening ear, but come as Mine.”
“Fourteen days, seven hours, three minutes and twenty one seconds…” you say when I answer your call.
“Hello,” is what I whisper, afraid that my words could reveal the scars in my heart, or worse off the agony of my soul.
“I miss you,” you say.
Have you ever wondered why the moon never plays the role of the sun? She stays hidden until it’s time for her to reign in the night. Like a side chick.
And like that, I come to mind when it needs me, a therapy session…checking in with your Counselor for nuggets of wisdom, emotional cleansing.
Oh, Stardust…what happened to the spaces within our silence where we used to dwell, two strangers, in-love falling in and out of love with every moment they spend together?
So, I take another deep breath and you laugh…an easy laugh, Love.
“I know you won’t admit it. For how long will we do this? Do you know what I wish? I wish that I could truly change and be the one you need, but these beautiful women won’t stop appealing to me, and it may sound off, but Heaven knows I’ve tried and the thought of seeing you look at me like I went and usurped the Devil is something I cannot bear…I’m a mess,Love. I miss you and it’s been too long since I saw you, I saw the cup you use to drink coffee whenever you visit me and…”
“And what?” I ask.
“Love, I don’t know anything anymore…did you see that Wamlambez meme I sent you on Whatsapp? It’s funny right, like the monkey is also on board…jamming to that tune…Kenyans are the best I tell you, this country has the craziest people on earth.”
“You are digressing.”
“Love…I miss you…and all it took today was just seeing a cup to acknowledge this, a cup! Can you imagine that? And it’s nothing like the fancy mugs you have but just seeing it gave me feelings…I hate this, and I don’t know…why is it that you never say a word while I say all these stupid things? I feel sometimes like you are dangling the carrot before me, watching me prod along…I’m in too deep, Love, in too deep.”
I thought I had it all,
Health, Time, Love and Wisdom.
I thought I had it all, I really did and for a while, my heart soared.
For, how could what was in my palm, slip through my fingers as I watched.
How could I be this weak?
How could I be at the mercy of another being…saying ‘help’ and having them hurdle around in groups whispering my losses into ears of the very same hands that could lift me up?
How could I be the one who forgot the time?
How could I be the one who cried when the world was asleep and smiled when it was awake?
How could I be this stranger staring back at me?
I thought of my life, my dreams, my work, my words…and for a moment, my mind swirling with these questions, came a precise voice…a calm voice, something like a soft breeze at the back of my head…and from it came the words,
“you are still here and if that doesn’t count for something, then I don’t know what does, Get up, Get up, Get up, Get up…”
I saw a lady at the bus stop.
Her skin as dark as the night, her lips a beacon, and her eyes…her eyes spoke of eons of lifetimes.
So in my attempt to strike a conversation, I started with “Hi,”
She smiled and moved to the left, and seeing this space, I sat…
I could have lived in that moment, and created a world unlike this one.
I saw a lady at the bus stop,
Her skin, the canvas of nature, her scent, a testament of adornment.
I saw a lady at the bus stop and I was afraid of what her soul would reveal,
So, I fiddled with the hem of my skirt, pretended to scroll through my Facebook timeline until the bus came…and when I stood to leave, she asked me, “do you ever feel like you have been waiting all your life?”
Dear Stardust,
I feel too much. You say that one has to look at me to know what I feel, my emotions adorn my skin, my breath is a composition of emotions and my eyes…you fear that gaze, the one that you claim bores into your soul and draws it into the light.
How you come up with these words, I know not. Whereas I devour books, you would rather skin a feline creature than consume the words in one.
So, you stand back and watch me down my fourth cup of coffee and shake your head, “I swear you are an addict, coz who drinks that much coffee and falls asleep? Remember the time you had two shots of expresso and still had another house coffee? And chocolate cake all in one sitting?”
“I love coffee.”
“It’s bad for your teeth, skin and all that acidity…try some drinking chocolate, or soya.”
“No, thanks.”
You smile and continue chatting on your phone. I drown in my words, in my worlds thinking about you- for I have never met anyone who knows how to disentangle themselves from their current situation without a second thought. You come to me when you want to.
You flee from me like the rising and setting of the sun.
Stardust, I wrote you a letter.
I couldn’t sleep after seeing you two nights ago, and there was this shiver that filled my soul when I thought about you, and so I put everything I felt at that moment in words. You are right, do you know that? I feel too much, and the thing about being in public or busy circles is that I pick up on how people feel and it’s too much for me, am I going crazy Stardust?
Like right now, I know you are almost giving in, suggesting that you hang out with them…and you will invite her or her group of friends. These beautiful creatures swirl about you. They are readily available and whenever I think of it, my head snaps…my heart wretches and my soul weeps. How happy and comfortable you are in who showers you with attention, if you can hit it and quit it, then the heavens are in your favor.
How did I get here Stardust?
You are like a cause that I volunteered for and now that I have been here, I do not know whether I believe anymore. Like religion, you shatter my beliefs when trauma strikes. Like life you unravel with each event.
How did I get here Stardust?
Why am I still here Stardust? So, I see you shake your head and you grin, and before you hit that reply button, I know that she’s convinced you. Or rather, you have made it easy for her to convince you, Stardust.
So, I guess I’ll keep that letter Stardust…one day, when my heart is completely broken, I’ll read it at dusk, light it up at dawn and walk into the day knowing that I truly loved and in so doing, love fueled my life.
nilichoandika 