Like two cups of coffee as it rains on a Friday evening,
Like cozying into a warm duvet in July in Nairobi,
Like coming home after a long time.
You and I are better together like lyrics to a melody,
I know it’s cheesy, but if you could come my way, help me adorn these pages words, then maybe just maybe we’d sprinkle this world with stardust,
For whoever has stories can never be lost.
I thought of this as I was standing by the shores of Lake Victoria. It was a hot afternoon and I was waiting for food, see- most of the restaurants beside this magnificent being-so vast, yet powerful and soothing all believe that ‘food is prepared and served on order,’ this translates to ‘you place the order and wait for half an hour or more for it.’
And just like that with one foot in the water, another in the dark sand…I asked myself:
Who do you call when you want to disappear?
Thoughts assail me in the quiet,
When the world is asleep is how I welcomed them,
But lately, they surround me in the day,
On my way to work, while at work, seated in a matatu, eating a mango, drinking coffee.
Life is mist, when the wind blows it ceases,
So are my thoughts, but they persist, the living do not.
So, I am at that age when the giants whose shoulders I stood on take a bow,
C says it’s the age where we bury our parents, friends, and dreams,
But I refuse to acknowledge it as a loss,
For we all live for many days, take many breaths, create memories and to cease to celebrate that because of the one day we cease to be…is a great loss.
Now I am more in love with horizons because what I choose to focus on determines how close or far,
How vast or limited it is,
and just like that, horizons assail my thoughts.
I thought of all the places I want to visit, the memories of you and I linger at the gates of truce.
December is here and she comes with the promise of family meetings, home cooked meals and getting to catch up with loved ones, those who’d been toiling in the city-coming home and getting to breathe for a week or so.
For me, it’s all about work, following up on projects, and reflecting on everything I did this year.
I managed to write 12,939 words out of 50,000 words for NanoWrimo- and though I did write every day, most of it were notes, comments, things that caught my eye that were not part of the story I had started, and so, this year, I didn’t get the 50k in.
On reading: I’ve been enjoying the books that are released on Netgalley and reading more which made me feel less awful about not winning this year’s NanoWrimo. I just added some new titles, check these out:
Have a great weekend.
we look up to the stars and forget the galaxy within,
if it glitters, it’s perfect,
yet we forget that we are dust,
centuries old, woven from generations of warriors we know not of,
we celebrate the fickle and trod upon the strong,
like bees we gather around a hashtag, now like puppets we jump on trends,
we dance, laugh, do what everyone is doing in exchange for numbers…
the very same numbers we know not of, like the stories that make us,
the fears and hopes and dreams and will within us.
She said, “What’s sad is that for a second of joy, to feel a fleeting moment of bliss, I too forget the galaxy within for the star outside.”
You are the one who never leaves the one behind,
Who through a simple ‘hello’ opens up the world of ‘are you truly okay?’
And in the hours that I’m cloaked in fear,
Drenched in grief,
Drowning in anguish, it is you who I summon,
The prisoner and the captive,
The light and the dark,
The yes and the no,
The known and the unknown,
It is you,
The One.
There is something,
a stirring,
No, it feels more like a gathering,
Of thoughts, memories, emotions, a swelling
It calls me here,
To the city where only I have walked certain paths, lived certain days,
Made certain memories.
There is something, I just don’t want to explore what it is.
My name is Laana and where it is a beautiful word to utter and easy on the tongue, it is what my people know as a curse. I am the cursed one. I was born on a stormy night at the exact time that thunder struck and the moon was right above the singing forest. Everyone knows not to utter a sound when it pours but I came into the world screaming at the moon.
My people cannot begin to understand where I draw my powers from and so they would rather call me cursed than stand in judgment of their secrets revealed. My home serves as the boundary between our people and the people of Jirani. They too have someone whom they look up to like we do; their source can make the sun stand still or send the rain away, I wouldn’t know because I have never met their source- these are the stories I hear in the market or in the dance arena when I sneak quietly to attend events, or watch the dance of the maidens every year as hosted by the royal family.
An excerpt from the book, Laana: Daughter of the Middle World
And when the sun revealed herself,
my love asked for a song,
what kind of song? I asked.
A love song.
Sing me a love song.
nilichoandika 