PLEASE DO

Will you,
Let clouds gather
In front of your eyes,
And drop from them salty oceans?
Will you
Pour the water on the burning embers,
Let the pain burn to ashes,
Lock my palm into yours
Tell me all is alright,
And that healing is
Not a dream so farfetched?

Will you,
Show me the light peering
Through the clouds,
Show me that rainbow
That fights this deluge…
To a halt, no more shade of grey.

Will you,
Tell me hope is hear
The chemotherapy,
The frequent visits
To the ones with needles?
Tell me!
The white I wear signifies hope
Not peace awaits,
Tell me!
That once it’s done
My daughter may suckle milk
From these breasts my dear.

Will you
Tell me that
I’ll be that success story
The woman who beat cancer,
Even though tears of blood still stream
My face,
Each pain by night
Crushes my skull?

By
Mishley Otiende

Epigrams

Cinders lay strewn at the depth of my heart,

Choked words

Burning tongue,

Emanates from my mouth

A long chain of nothingness-

Silence reigns.

I type,

Send you infinite messages

I can’t convey orally,

Hands punch the letters on the keyboard,

Phone doesn’t get tired

Just sends the coded messages…

Remnants of a broken love.

Begins the conversation:

You speak in parables

Can’t get the gist of what you type

Conundrums hidden in sentences

Words 

Making lemon honey.

The typing continues…

How do you feel?

PHAYPPNU

What do you think of us?

NDMA

Do you still love me?

NHTIK OS

Should we go out tomorrow?

ONGGI TUO TWIH ORYU DFIREN.
You talk in riddles

Fear coming out clean

Giving me puzzles for me to solve

Beat my strings to a heavy crescendo

And pave way for the fall of the tune to the diminuendo.

Human as I am

I learn to walk away after

Solving your puzzle

Not getting the chance to explore your labyrinth

Having embers still burning in my heart

Ashes I wait

To heal the hurt

Inside another puzzle you couldn’t solve:

I OVLE OYU.

Full stops between us

So you were a virgin twice?
…

Where were you last night?

…

What did you do?

…

Who did you sleep with?

…

How was it?

…
Amidst full stops

I speak,

I ask

Still yet 

No forthcoming answer

Only fluent silence permeating our conversation

Only whispers from people around us

Only rumours that I hear from vile mouths.
We’d be together

We’d sit at that hotel

At Palmsprings

Dream of the perfect future…

Wedding at the costas of Mombasa

Walk across sand as soft as your walnut skin

Babies, two, three or maybe even four

Renata, Andreas, and maybe 

Little Margarita or Theo.
Living in this house of glass

No mud exists to dirty our sparkling feet

Nor dirt whatsoever upon the clean, clean Earth

No doubt

No boiling hearts

And lemon-tasting words

No wasps in our mouth 

No terror hide…

Just a bright future.
Yet full stops

Now,

A series of ellipses,

Making me wonder

When words ran out,

When the honey factory in your mouth

Depleted its reserves

When words became extinct,

When the altar cracked

The aisle was no longer what it used to be

The red carpet changed yellow –

The wedding gown becomes soiled

No longer sully

Dark as night

True as the lies you uttered.
The demons at the harbour shake at your sight,

The poison of the scorpion is underrated

The wind knows not of such shear destruction

The Earth spits,

A blub of saliva from another man’s mouth

Melts my inner core

Telling me of your atrocities

Saying that you are not the one I married.
Too many full stops between us,

A long speech of audible silence

A long chain of lies,

Say something…

You perceive it as a song

Just a refrain that I’ll sing

I wake up from my seat

Hurt

Wondering how I can forgive you

If you can’t just utter the words:

Please, forgive me.

Only full stops

Full stops exist between us.

Launching the heart the other way – propping up that smile on your face despite the situation.

Did I just fart? The first question propped up in your mind when others around you are holding noses while you aren’t. Of course, I farted. Yet I choose to defend myself. Still maintaining that same smile I had earlier by using the same back up statement I had used since I knew how to articulate words at a tender age: Farting is healthy, I would say. This magic made me forget and stopped vile comments hurled at me by peers. 

I totally agree I have that farting problem and so does my friend (Lindsy) have another greater itch than mine. Actually, I can’t call it an itch – that is an understatement. Finding out that you are HIV positive is something else. The world goes bleak. Friends cease to exist. Ties break. But beyond the calamity, there is somebody watching. Somebody who cares. This should be the refrain you sing in your heart, Lindsy. Somebody cares. The poem below says it all.

Lindsay you must read this! I care.


WATER-RISE

Echoeing was a distant voice 

And a nearer pain,

Ripples ran away from her feet

At the turbulence she caused

Upon the waters,

Swimming pool calm, soul transcending through different worlds,

Oscillating through different thoughts-

Her mind sang the same refrain

She had sang it long

She had gotten used to it.
She was that same

Innocent girl

Sitting at the edge of that swimming pool,

The same raging waters 

With thirst of exploring the world,

Jump over heights unknown to Earth,

With elevated temperatures, boiling with eagerness,

To land with a thud,

Make known her presence.
However,

As she sat at the edge of the swimming pool,

This time round

She was not that waterfall that raged upon the boulders,

Washing rocks clean

Following the path it set for itself,

Making its way down the stream,

Instead,

The water pushed upwards

Yearning for what it left above;

Perceived she,

She was that waterfall

That felt the pain of falling down.
Soon,

Water rose to the top,

Wondered she whether she could feel the colours that existed then,

Whether now colours could be felt as she was taught by him,

Whether by smell she could sight the green again,

Whether the red in roses would be traced by touch,

She only thought…

If by one stroke of luck,

She’d notice the shimmering light

From the golden necklace she wore,

Or just notice the yellow of autumn

The green from spring,

The white with which winter identified itself,

Enveloped by darkness

She tranced in this world of thoughts.
She thought of Charles,

Susan, Byron, Terry…

Does Charles still have a liking for beige?

Does Susan still soak herself in blood?

Is yellow yet a favourite of Byron?

Terry, does she still camouflage with the trees?

Were they taken into this dark world?

For she heard them at the school corridors,

Called out to them

But they seemed not to see her,

She only heard their pacing

As if they were looking for something-

A way to move away

Colours had ceased when everything went black.
At that edge,

She felt the waters

Which touched her feet,

Left the tip of her dress sodden,

She wondered if she could hug

It as it were before,

She feared,

The dark world she was in

Throttled her,

She felt at peace at the waters

A piece of it,

Finally

She decided to join it

But too short before the stout figure of a woman came by,

And as Moses,

She got drawn out

Alive, kicking

Then she knew she had not lost all-

Her mother still existed

Watched her like a hawk.

Won’t leave…tough African marriages. Tough love.

Never thought he’d grow up to be a drunkard. That he’d dedicate such a poem to his dear wife. That such perseverance still exists. Vicissitudes of marriage stitched into this African-based poem leaves me with a thorny question: ”Can such tough love exist? “


BEYOND THE SMILE



Home-

Where rivers dried

And savannah grasslands had their stay,

In warm air,

Churning winds upon our visages

From dawn to dusk,

We’d run across the fields

Holding hands,

Sealing fate,

Making stories that we’d tell our offspring

Down the line.

Home-

Where I resided,

Where I sighted only one blossoming flower

In the den of shrub,

Cacti common to land

Grasslands vast…

Home brought me you

Home made us.

Home-

The sour taste of wedlock;

When after a few shots of tequila,

Drowning in liqour

Brooding with anger,

I would change from the infinite-running

Peaceful, blue sky

Into that raging hurricane –

You’d see the storm come in,

Tear the roof off your head for the night

Scathe your skin like lightning hitting tree trunks,

Flash death upon your tear-streaked eyes.

Home-

Upon the doorstep you slept on,

No doormat, no wooden floor,

Just rough stones as a bed

You’d still move in,

Smiling-

Believing it’s the omega

Yet you know it’s just the alpha….

You fear going back, maybe

You heavy with child and see it futile

-Let me just stay, storms don’t last forever;

You’d say so.

Home-

Broken windows

Shattered glass

Taste of steel upon thy mouth

You only see a dim light

You only have a dwindling hope

Look out into the night

For days,

Wondering where I’d run off to

Whether  I’d found other wells I’d drink from,

Other flowers that finally sprouted

Bringing with them a blend of scents that snared me,

Home-

I’d still return

Having blows on my face

No strength to walk

Where on the doorstep I’d generate a thud

And you’d come out,

Smiling amidst sobs –

Happy I’ve returned,

Tirelessly, you drag me in

Then nurse me back to life.

Home-

Home is you

Home is us

Home is where I learnt

Beyond that smile

Lies love

Lies suffering

Lies tears

Lies all.

#poetry