The Arena in my Body

 

 

 

 

That my station is at the kitchen,

That my niche is by the laundry basket,

That my place is by the maternity ward,

That I’m resigned to

 

That you can be so ungrateful

That when I go toil for you

That you sit by all day complaining

Adding to my frustrations

 

Toil? You that can’t even bring oil home,

You whose pockets are inaccessible like treasured lockets

Do you understand toil?

Toil is scrubbing the trousers you soil

After you spoil binging cheap liquor

 

Hush! You thankless being,

That does not recognize my sacrifices

You who continues to drain my strength and blood

You who has stripped the man in me

You deserve nothing but thrashing

 

You are just but a beast

With bloated ego like yeast

And ‘big’ brain the size of cyst

Go and fight like other men

And stop this omen

 

 

                                                        Duet By @GKaneyia  and @Varaq

 

 

 

My neighbor has moved

My neighbor has moved

Even the fury of El Nino couldn’t keep him grooved

He was seen literally fleeing to harm;

His thin mattress squeezed under his heavy arm

My neighbor was mean,

He swiftly changed lasses, the way I naughtily rushed my soap,

He couldn’t lend me even one for cuddles;

Even when they trooped in doubles,

My neighbor used to flaunt his Johnny Bravo box,

In just a towel, he used to step outside his door to stretch his muscles, like a cox surveying the docks,

The females in the plot could growl and stare with zest,

Yet with disdain and pity, greet my efforts to flaunt my bony chest

I heard the winds blew away his prized towel,

Leaving exposed his bottle-top-sized jewel

His surprise and shame, only serving to fuel the flame

Maybe I will sleep again tonight,

Absent his soprano wails and the pounding from his tormentors

Mzee Varaq

Me, Silence, You

Somebody recently asked me why I was pulling a Mourinho.

Startled I ask what he meant.

"Si unapost once a month venye Mourinho anawin once a month"

Okay nobody asked me that. I couldn’t just resist taking a swipe at the other one. (Ooops, sorry again)

So a story found itself in my email. No sender. No return address. Just a story. Waiting to be read. 

Ladies and gentleman,  Me, Silence, You..........

###############

The text message was very brief, but still long enough to expose subtle hints of what he wanted to communicate. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined that I would receive such a text, not least from my Alejandro. 

I felt a little sick in the stomach and a thin sweat formed on my brow. Goose bumps followed suit. A painful lump that wouldn’t just leave developed in my throat. I couldn’t possibly be breaking down in the middle of a meeting. Was I getting punished for fondling my phone when I should have been contributing to this serious meeting? 

I tried to excuse myself so as not to make a fool of myself, but my feet were devoid of any life. I had to sit back down momentarily and recuperate. 

When I finally came to, I literally ran to the washrooms to seek refuge. 

If you have ever seen someone who is about to throw up or one who ate chakula mwitu and the stomach decides to act up, then surely you know what I am talking about.

I drew out my phone and reread the text a zillion times, buried my face into my hands and felt the taste of bile in my mouth. All the poignant memories came streaming in.

Still, the tears refused come.

                                 ######

How about I begin the story from the beginning?

My name is Maria Clara Mendoza and this is my love story.

                             ###########

We have been in a long distance relationship; me and my Alejandro. 

The last time we met, I sensed he was a bit withdrawn and he echoed the sentiments too. The truth is, when bae has been away for eons and you finally meet, there is some slight air of discomfort.  

Ours was even more pronounced because of the Pandora’s Box from our last lengthy conversation. I was naive to believe that our issues would just disappear with the assurance of love we gave each other on that cloudless night. We were to meet the following weekend to smile and laugh and do YOLO things. 

Then this text thing happened. 

Not that we were the perfect couple. Far from it. We fought, as if we wanted to finish each other but made up as if we would never break up again. Only to break up as soon as we made up. We didn’t see our relationship as broken, we saw it as different. We thought (maybe it was just me) that we could be saved.  

Truth is I loved him. I still do love him. I think he loves me too. Even if he wouldn’t admit it now. I sound clingy right? Maybe I should just accept and move on.

It’s easier said and done.

I looked at the man and I saw great potential. A man who is going places when he is done detouring. I consoled myself that he met distractions along the way. He was a cheerful giver who was there for me and I feel really indebted to him. He was the one person I couldn’t get mad at for long because I had important silly stuff to say to him. He had an aura of importance over my life. It did significantly help that he had a great body too. Sinfully sexy! And his ginene………

*(Okay Maria Clara Mendoza, please don’t say more. We get it)

And then this! Three lines in a text!

I don’t like assumptions so I did what I normally do whenever I don’t comprehend what one means. I called to seek clarifications. 

Yes, he didn’t pick up, and yes I never stopped. I can be a bother sometime. Ask Alejandro, if he picks your calls.

I just wanted to know what he meant. Of course he wrote that I was perfect and that I deserved somebody better than him. Better? How better? There is no better. Who will argue with me the way we argued? What of matrimonial gikmachakalmago?

 

So I called my ‘that girl’ to help me decipher what exactly Alejandro meant. Not that I couldn’t read the short message. Bwana I am not illiterate. 

My ‘that Girl ‘was in a meeting and thus unavailable for comment. 

So I called Bobby the guy who never gets tired of my ranting. Turns out that he was already enroute to town. Maybe as a guy he could explain the three lines from a guy’s point of view.

We met in a five star hotel over gweno as El Nino caused havoc unperturbed in the streets below. He advised I don’t call, an advice I intended to follow but didn’t follow nevertheless. 

I preferred to look at it as fighting for my true love and not as a sign of desperation. Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe the three lines were a typing error. 

I thought guys preferred ladies who drew the best out of them, challenged them to be better and put them on toes? Apparently this clown was an exception.

I can’t just describe how I feel. Actually I don’t even know how I feel myself. 

Had he just had the cajones to summon me to a nice place and deliver his bad news, I would have accepted and moved on. But a text? A text surely? How could he just reduce our relationship to a shilling? It wasn’t even a shilling since the ninja was on unlimited text!

Even worse is this ominous silence between us. Is he too chicken to face me? Couldn’t he just come out and tell me that am not beautiful enough or that he no longer loves me? Or that famous speech of babe it’s not you, it’s me?

He just had to go silent. Silent! Are you a corpse or something? Even corpse nowadays do ginene. (You heard that Hero radio audio, right?)

So I will weep for you, but more I will weep for my folly, until I can’t weep no more. 

Maybe then I will move on.