Her Thought Piece

Ting!.. There goes my phone at 11 am. "Happy mother's day hun" Ting! "Mpesa confirmed. You have received..." I giggle and text back 'LOL' with a wink face. This is our little inside joke with my boo. My BFF is already at my door. She reads my face like a damn psychic and she knows something is up. "Guess who gets Mother's day funds?" I jump to say. Are you serious? She laughs and claps and signals me to chuck. We have a spa appointment to get to. She drives my car today because she wants the tea, haha. I'm very expressive with my hands and get carried away when narrating stories. We don't want to die young. My car has yet been scratched because Nairobi.. It is still shiny and brand new. My house lease is far from expiration so hey, I have a lot to live for. I don't know about her. Maybe balcony plants and her 4th situationship this year?? A passion mint cold drink comes in handy with this Nairobi traffic. "How do you sleep

 It's days like this that I think of you harder than I normally do. I mean all the bright red hearts and ads in my face and every Twitter feed how do I stop myself? I don't want to, anyways.  So stranger, we're out in the universe, walking our own paths. We're living; different careers, hobbies, lifestyles. Our backgrounds don't even come close. Yours, a silver spoon in the mouth and while I live hand to mouth. Different journeys but on to the same things. We're seeking to connect at some point. Companionship, to belong, be wanted and understood.  Friend, our priorities align and maybe that's why our paths crossed. After 'nice to meet you', and some jokes, we hit it off. We talk daily. We have a couple of decades to catch up on and time and energy is all we got for that. This is fun. Your company is great and you seem to laugh a lot. Oh, did I tell you about your gorgeous smile? Your subtle touches on my palm. Your goodbye hugs and safe presence. I c

"Is that you?" I ask, as my eyes hover lazily at some small framed picture on the bedside table.  Yes babe, I was cute wasn't I? He responds and turns over to bury his face in my shoulders.  "Ah you were, but what happened hun?" He now wakes up to tickle me hard, and for he knows my weak spots I have to retract those bad things I spoke to him.  "Sorry hun, I've stopped. You're drop dead gorgeous even now, why else would I voluntarily chose to wake up next to you all these times? But if I may ask, how much do you remember about your childhood, how was it like?"  He sits, leaning on the piles of pillows and begins telling me the story of his life. This goes on for the better part of our Sunday morning, and I tell him about mine too. This happens all the time, the vulnerable, heartfelt pillow talks in the morning that keep me hooked for how vivid and dramatic of a storyteller he is. He's such a mood for days I swear.  My humor needs have such

It's 5:23 am, Monday morning. It's pouring and the excess water draining from the roof is slapping the corridor a little too hard. Now I'm awake before I really should and it sucks to have to start this new week with these eyebags I'm staring at on the wardrobe mirror.  I wanna text my person. I haven't seen him all weekend and I miss him so bad my toes hurt. He sent me a text late last night that I peeped at while drifting in and out of sleep. It fazed me. I had waited and waited for the reply and I'm dead ass that skeleton meme lying on the bed. Dude takes his sweet time and I love that about him. He's sweet as 12 icecreams.  I like it slow. I told him that when he asked to be the person I share most of my life with. I like to check what someone is made of before I dive in, feet first. I'm a brittle maiden who craves love and all the good stuff that comes with it. I have done this love thing before and many are times that it's ended in tears. Not e

“It’s obvious that by now you know I like you a lot.” “What?” I retort with a cheeky face I make when I’m trying to downplay these situations. “I do, and it feels like you’re stealing my heart ma’am.” “But I am a career criminal Sir, you shouldn’t be surprised.” My humour kicks in and I’m getting excited. “I can’t have you running in the streets free like that, I should cuff you sometime.” “Well, catch me if you can!” and I cough faintly. “Ok, get your witty ass in we got to go.”   I have a cold but he says we should go out. He insists and fine, I let him have it. I could manage. We drive off to grab some burgers at the mall and catch up in an open space. He says staying indoors and cuddling up with my teddy bear, Bubbles, doesn’t help. He speaks like an indigenous Kenyan and I totally understand. He says I look good today. With my blue cardigan sweater, jeans and bata ngomas. “But my eyes are bloodshot don’t you see? “But I said what I said Monique.” His inner self mus

Just another day of sitting by myself. The rain is pouring, the mist hastily blinding my dusty window from the dreamy sight of falling droplets, and the overcast skies.  Blackouts go hand in glove with such a weather in my country, and the silence disrupts your peace of mind. It felt better dancing to the music in front of the mirror, to binge watch series and play games on my computer. That feels like an easy way of living by myself, no? To drown in to social media, easy.  Now the silence. The cold starts to bite and I slide quickly beneath my furry blankets. And that's not enough. I need a hot drink and snack to warm up faster but getting up from this snug is something I don't want to do. If only someone could come through for me. If only they'd cuddle me up and touch a little, and smooch a little more.  The silence plunges me deeper. To what makes me happy. What keeps me single and solo and satisfied. What gives me the will to live off myself, physically a

"Aki Sue call me in 2 minutes. It's mayday!" I am hysterical and sweating bullets. It's 6:45 p.m during this pandemic. I am too far but I must go home. I hate it here. I loathe this man.  My girlfriend knows the drill and calls back sounding very fierce. My call volume is intentionally high so the man can overhear how impatient my "cousin waiting by my door" is. He now drives a little fast and my heart races even faster, it's winning I can tell. My veins are almost popping out of my skin in dire attempt to guise my disgust. I would cry but Fergie says big girls don't do that.  I know, I know, I should get an Uber but it's actually late. I am a scaredy cat and he's my safest bet home I swear, which hella sucks at this point. He's an authorized medic so I guess we won't be landing into any trouble with the hungry and blood thirsty night crawlers. My bad, I meant to say cops.  There's some serious traffic but in an hour we pull up at

...Phil calls and an involuntary smile fills up my face. I can’t get used to his croaky voice. It makes me nervous and I like it. “So what’s up?” I ask. He says he wants to see me, he’s off work. I too am home. “Can I come?”, he asks, “I have some wine and I miss seeing you laugh so sheepishly”. Yes, wine gets me drunk. I have been a teetotaler all my life until Phil happened, a month ago. He comes and soon we are seated on the floor chatting and teasing. He draws me in for a kiss. I am complaisant this time. I respond in kind and we get lost in a shameless hearty moment until he feels his phone ring in his pocket. Damn! It’s been a 5-year hiatus from physical intimacy and I feel heat surging through my body. I could scream but as for Phil…  I 100% recommend. I let him answer and on getting his phone out, oh whoop! The balloons slip out too. I cock my eyebrows, in a quizzical stare and he gives me the smug smile back. It’s her I could tell and he was not hiding it.

It's a Friday night in an eighth full matatu(team positivity) and I'm going wherever the party's at. I'm a little frustrated from frantic calls I'm getting from another fella and I won't pick them anyway. A raggedy brother hops in, looks around and he settles for where I am. I'm mad, what are all these empty se ats for? I know I'm not looking pretty as my hair is held back with no much thought put into neatness. I'm in a trenchcoat and some random pants I jumped into hurriedly. Or it's that thing they say about you being who you att ract? I'm actually mad because he has a boiled maize on his left that he's gnawing at unapologetically and a fat avocado on his right. Wait, no, that's no crime. It's his chewing that's getting to my nerves. "You can have a bite," he offers with his mouth full and pointing the maize at me. I'll pass lawfully. My reason being chewing maize is exhausting for me, so I'm

Momma, it's been one month. No calls. Nothing. Well I know you're old fashioned like that and I accepted that texting will never be your thing, unless of course under special circumstances. (Where you communicate in letters, whew, I guess if you mastered Morse code then dots would have been the story of my life.) The last time we talked you were working on something, I mean, money for school fees and upkeep. So one month, what have I been eating? Or what is going on back there? Momma, folks here expect me to call back, that's what a good daughter should do. I unlikely pass the bar on relationships but mum I can't call you. I think of you everyday that goes and I know better than to call so fast. Because everything I want to tell you starts with I need money and ends with I need even more money than before. You know long before, you'd call me at least twice a week, from butt-dials, to goodnights, to checking up on me and talking to all my friends; you know

“You look lovely,” he says. I can hear his tenor voicing these words close to my ears. They dance around my ear lobes for a while and somehow they feel like an itch nearing my eardrums. But close is as far as they get, and I turn my head to look at him. I glare like I heard nothing. I guess that teeny weensy rush of wind I went against in the process swept those words away. In all sincerity, I felt nothing. My walls went up, on hearing those words. My fatal and first instinct is to bat away these words people use as gate-passes into our fragile hearts. Most of the time they want something right? So during my vincible days my head goes sprawling, “oh! What does he want? Definitely not me. With all this height I still look so naive? At only the first glance? Or what’s his dysfunction anyway. Would you save those words for that other girl? she looks like her life depends on it. I’m furious within this poker face and beneath the neatly plaited lines on my head. He is probably

I look at generational gap in so many ways, and my parents just make it clear how lost they feel living amongst us. Well, my dad made it even crisper, ha-ha. I had my series in CDs and would leave them at the TV area. So someday, my dad got ahold of walking dead which he chose to watch at night, mistake number one. All we could hear was him gasping, “My goodness!” every other two seconds in some kind of tone. Worse, he was alone in the living room. My old man is brave, those zombies are driving him crazy but he keeps on, until when he realizes that this thing won’t end. Well, he wasn’t raised watching series. So he relinquished the trauma! I too, got really cold chills watching XYZ but my amusement couldn’t let me back down till I got used to them, even horror movies don’t do nothing to me anymore, except Hannibal. It’s a thriller that apprehends me, and I need the lights on to get through it. All this time I zoom into the film industry asking myself why? I mean what are these

On this day I feel like Cinderella, running in her glass slippers back home, shunning the midnight hour when tick-tock hits then she turns out to be who not the prince thought. I am alarmed, truly that this year has been my princess-like charade, and once the fireworks start to go off and people start screaming in the neighborhood that it is new year, everything will change. So 3 campus years, what do I make of it? Maybe I should have pictures to show and stories to tell round a bonfire all night. But snap your fingers and for those who cannot put their thumb and middle finger together; swing them sideways to make a sound, I hope you can blink once. And yes, that’s all I can say about my years for now. It was, then it wasn’t, and believe me it’s still messing my mind up.  Can I go on being Cinderella anymore? Will friends I had in school always there for me because they were there, like the next door to mine? Will there still be like a titanic-sized room for mistakes, a

I wanted to pour my heart out but… You didn’t ask me. I am not inherently the type that just pours whenever I feel burdened.  I am a tickly lady but it takes more than the “hi, how was your day?” series of questions to  poke issues from the pits of my troubled soul. It also sometimes take more than a day of chit- chat to break through the “I-have-been-great” veil that I wear on my face. I do not ask you to  shake things off me, I do not have to be going through something every day, but realistically I  cannot be so great 365 days a year, or every twice a week that we get to talk. Disconcerting  and painful tales do not readily respond to the “how-are-you?” probes for some of us too. You look more curious than caring . That is a no-no. I am a private being. I do not spill my  beans on you just since you asked. I can tell that you just want to know and maybe feel good  that someone told you something sensitive. You do not follow up the details. Days later you  do not want t

Today I stand before thee, fellow mortals and what I have is a hefty matter at heart. Today I’ll try to plead my case and each of you reading this is already an appointed member of the jury. I am just a media student and most definitely not pursuing a law degree and yet I feel like my issue deserves a hearing. Hence, I throw this ball to the court of public opinion and I will be waiting edgily for a ruling to finally put this mind-boggling matter to rest. (In the end you can comment but finish with a standard “guilty” or “not guilty’’ verdict) So look at me, better, look into my eyes in case you need a better view of my soul. If you are scared stiff then listen and do it good and proper. Today I am desperate for a second chance (well I think even the 10th and 5th times are also called “a second chance”) but I need it bad. The weight of my guilt may not be best portrayed on my face but it is definitely shaking me like an earthquake.  Sometimes I get hold of myself and I walk ar

I recently visited Inua Mimi Rescue Centre , a home for children who have escaped tribalism, domestic violence, abandonment and such traumatizing events. I had plenty of fun, thanks to the joy these kids bore like when a friend of mine introduced himself, the kids just burst into a song that mentions his name. I mean they were so adorable and made that Saturday so memorable. I am sorry if it’s terrible to have pitied them, but that’s the kind of attitude I carried all the way from Juja to the Kibera, you know, that woiye woiye feeling. So I am there, fully determined to accomplish the day’s mission, as they say “putting a smile on a child’s face” and our idea was to do a drawing activity having brought plenty of painting stuff for them to get wild on. They draw and their 10 minutes are over. I collect their pieces as we grin at their creativity and tell them how breathtaking they are, but one. That was of a 7 or 8 year old boy, a drawing in red pen of a tilapia, a love shape,

If you read the title your face is probably smirking already, I know. If it stays that way till the end please let me know. Our social advocates of imperfection, HOLA! Please stop getting edgy too soon, ITS JUST ME. If you hurt me and I do not confront you, count yourself uncared for, by me. Also maybe I’m keeping my distance because yelling my true feelings may drive you closer to me, and I am not interested. Being a girl in itself makes me automatically too awesome at detecting mistakes, getting mad, confronting the offender and not easily forgetting those faults. SO… Recently someone hurt me and I’m there counting A-Z; the chronology of everything they did. The nuts and bolts accurately giving the day, the hour, under what weather, in what clothes; blame it on my photographic memory. The burden of proof was staggering. Someone got the hang of it, shoved me in the car and took me on a nasty guilt trip down the memory lane.  This blame game doesn’t stop until you are tire