Childhood Snapshots

Childhood Snapshots

Shyly the girl jumps into the pool. She’s teaching me how to swim, but I am learning how to leave. This falls on the wrong side of my pleasure principle. This won’t work. The swimming, and the relationship. She’s a good girl. The kind of girl God gives you young so...
a drink called loneliness

a drink called loneliness

There is a boy next to me making love to his Smirnoff Ice. Smirnoff Ice tastes like expired antibiotics, but I don’t tell him that. A girl and her lover make way to ask for a matchbox. They reek of Dunhill cigarettes. I haven’t smoked in years mostly cause I end up...
It’s Us, not Them

It’s Us, not Them

It was ten to 11 PM when the lights went out. Close your eyes. Yes, that kind of darkness. Like that Kenya Power rogue monkey had cut off power. A cough here. A whistle there. A glass shattering. The parabola of tension. The air was heavy, as if there were too much of...
How To Bury a Comrade

How To Bury a Comrade

The first thing to understand when laying down a comrade to rest is that a comrade never rests. They give up the ghost. They kufa. They chew. But they don’t rest. And a comrade is never buried when the sun is at high noon. No. It has to rain. Because rain is the tears...
Nairobi, Nairoberry, KaNairo

Nairobi, Nairoberry, KaNairo

7. Akili mjini, nguvu kijijini. Tack that on your walls—and tattooed in your brain. 12. Nairobi is an expensive city—14th overall in Africa. You wake up hivi and KSh. 2,000 is gone. That is the rate to wake up in this city. Nairobi is a designer label sewn into a...
Kama Mbaya Mbaya: Wandering in Nairobi

Kama Mbaya Mbaya: Wandering in Nairobi

There is a certain routine of life and I’m willing to blur the lines at the end of it, because as I get older, I have learned that I could be quite rigid, but I understand there are such shades of grey in life as in fiction. For instance, having dreadlocks and running...

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