Oh, you who chose to stay when everyone including me, left.
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How is it that you smile given what you’ve been through?
How is it that in your scars dwell more light than in mine?
How is it that you who has been shattered dare comfort me, without hurting me?
How?
You smile, oh, Beauty, and say…”I have been through it all, will still endure some more, but the one place I’ve learned to make habitable is my home. I carry my essence, my being, everywhere I go, so no matter what comes my way…I’m always home.”
I come to you like a field of never ending scent that assails your nostrils.
You wander to worlds beyond whenever you behold my countenance.
It’s how you utter these words, like they’re the air you breathe…
It’s how you utter gold and act like dust that astounds me.
One hails from the other, but it’s value is placed higher than that which it hails from.
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I am Lavender, you say…
You want to soak me up, to relish in the presence I offer,
You want to devour me, as much as you can, for though I am Lavender,
I am the wind, I slip through your fingers even when you were unaware of my presence.
So, you churn these thoughts in your mind,
You say and do as you please,
You love and have as much as you can and flee,
Never staying long enough to receive the love you’d given.
It’s you that’s Lavender, it’s you that fills up a room with your scent and leave long before it fills up our nostrils.
It’s you that flees, a gentle breeze like the wind, a benign thought…a soul wandering the realms of this earth, unaware of how much love he’d get if only he stood still.
Years and years before the inception of the alphabet,
These people traveled the skies,
Soared on earth and relished worlds,
“How did they do this?” I asked.
“How did they know where to go without a map?”
“Oh…you silly child,” she said, “they knew because their souls knew where to turn left, right, where to catch a breath, where to lay down their heads and where to sprint.”
“How come?” I asked.
“Well, nowadays you have all these maps, all these signs leading you everywhere but nowhere. You are lost because you do not chart your own path…you strive to be like everyone else and what a sad life you lead…you take pictures to show strangers that you are happy, yet your own soul is unknown to you…all these maps…”
You once asked me “would you keep a secret from me?”
I answered, “yes, I would…everyone reserves the right to hold back some things even from themselves, isn’t that why the unconscious mind seems to unravel mysteries or depths we never thought we had?”
You laughed but I could see the war waging inside of you because like me, you go from zero to one hundred in a flash. I never cared to know why or ease your mind.
I should have.
I came across a shirt…a piece of clothing I once borrowed from you because I love my shirts as baggy as they can be, and my jeans…well, I never knew I dropped two sizes until I got a pair of skinny jeans.
So, here I am, wearing this shirt…unraveling every conversation we ever had and smiling as I drink my second cup of tea tonight. You had me undone, while I was a mystery even unto myself, to you…I was a puzzle and could easily be solved.
So, here I am, wearing this shirt…unraveling every conversation we should have had and smiling as I drink my second cup of tea tonight. You had me. Now, a part of me holds onto the only piece that still remembers you like you are right here, and it is telling me that I am okay, that I am alright…that I cannot keep my hurt hidden.
So, here I am, Stardust, saying thank you because in this lifetime…I still can’t believe how come I never got you to drink coffee!
Not at your wounded heart, neither your pleas nor touch would make me reconsider.
I refuse to travel back to the point where you wounded me.
Stardust, how is it that we orbit each other only to wound ourselves?
How is it that you who knows me all too well can break me when I am whole?
How is it that when I decide to leave, you draw me back?
I refuse to look back Stardust.
So, we stare at each other…I am seated directly opposite you and she is somewhere in the next room doing her best to locate her clothes.
I like her.
She’s got a warm body, beautiful smile and more so because just like me, she fell for your charms. The difference is that she let you trail your hands over her body…while I struggle to let you linger…a touch is like a prick, and you often say “these miles you’ve set between us will one day set us apart.”
I have asked her to stay. She’s not at fault. She’s as shocked and worried as you are, because she does not understand how you would drop her like hot coal for someone who is just a friend.
Stardust, you deserve the world. I lay it your feet. You win.
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How then is it that I ought to come to you as ‘yours’ when you relish everyone else? Oh, how the world is your buffet and us minions but snippets of delicacies that you may or may not relish.
I refuse to look back Stardust, so now we are at an impasse- my feet folded beneath me on this couch, my eyes, an ocean of hurt and your soul, gone…
I refuse to look back Stardust because I know in doing so, my heart may blossom at the moments you made it soar and it may just ask me to stay.
Do not ask me to stay.
Release me Stardust…I deserve the world, so curl your feet, let me pick it up and walk into the light.
It goes something like this, “once upon a time, years before the gods made man, there lived a being unlike no other. Her heart was the sun and her smile the moon. She shone brighter than every light known to the gods and in her presence there was glory.”
I know of a tale.
It goes something like this, “once upon a time, when man thought it wise to take another, he left his home and went to another being of beauty. Every day that he spent away from his home, his beloved’s heart grew cold. It grew so cold that when he’d lost everything he had; he came back to find a fortress around his home. He called a passer by and asked “who built this wall here?”
The passer by looked at him and shook his head, “don’t you know what happened? Some foolish man left his home for another and this wall right here is what remains of his wife’s heart. The poor woman died of a broken heart.”
I know of a tale.
It goes something like this, “once upon a time…”
I know of one tale right now, being of beauty, shine as bright as you can, dim the fear and doubts that try to cloud your light by saying ‘you are not good enough.’
You are a galaxy, being of beauty, in you are eons of splendor, own it!
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?
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.”
I am having one those days where my mind’s unsettled by matters unclear to me. I’ve come to love such days. Where no sleep means time to write, to ask myself ‘what if?’ and churn a story out of that, some dark, others silly but all of them in need of editing.
It’s two minutes to five o’clock in the evening as I type this sentence.
I have had three cups of milk tea and two mandazis. The sun is in her glory outside so I am seated on the floor typing away, using words to make it through this feeling I have.
Have you ever been in love?
Have you ever been in love whilst asleep only to wake up shuddering at the level of mockery your mind would make you endure whilst reality jolted you back into facts?
I yearn for such vivid dreams. Maybe they’ll come my way, however, if they do come your way instead of me, be a darling and write about it, at least I’d read something thrilling.
Have you ever made something, shared it and then thought, no- this need work and then shelved it again? I have started editing Sifuna and cannot wait to have it published this year in Kenya.
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I thought I was a galaxy, but the mood I am in today only serves to remind me how wrong I was to think in singular whilst I dwelled in plural, so now I am changing my outlook, I am going to sit here and listen to the sound of my heart beating- remind myself of every cheerful memory my mind can conjure up and maybe then…just then will being galaxies make sense to me.
nilichoandika 