I reach for you where language dies,
where silence folds itself into the shape of your name.
You stand before me, near, but oceans apart, like a fading dream,
and I keep loving you through the slow eternity of your absence.
If only your heart could hear how mine prays for you,
you’d understand what devotion means,
to be consumed, to be undone,
the way I love you.
@doddyokelo
Category: Uncategorized
The Measure of You
I may want to say I love you,
But how does one measure love,
In syllables, or in the tremor of a soul that stumbles at your smile?
Your beauty disarms language, turns words into stardust,
And I, a poet, become a beggar before your glow.
I may want to confess how you make me feel whole,
Yet “whole” feels too small, too mortal,
For you mend things I never knew were broken.
You walk past, and even the wind forgets its direction,
Even time takes a pause, to stare.
I may want to spend all my hours with you,
But what story shall I tell when the universe listens in envy?
Shall I speak of how your laughter baptizes the air,
Or how your eyes hold constellations of dreams that the stars bow to?
Even metaphors kneel when you pass.
You, my dear, are not within the normal SI unit of beauty,
You are the measurement that broke the scale.
The scientists may try to name your glow,
But it is art, not arithmetic; melody, not reason.
You are the kind of beauty that poets chase and never catch.
@doddyokelo
Man Enough to Cry
I know, I’m a man, yes, the great pillar of might and muscle,
The one who never trembles, never falters, never feels.
Society’s favorite statue, polished, silent, hollow.
But save that sermon, really, keep your “men don’t cry” gospel.
I am human, not granite shaped for your comfort, I bleed too, I just hide it better.
Oh, how noble it must look, dying quietly inside,
Smiling wide with a cracked soul, calling it strength.
You call it “African masculinity,” I call it emotional suicide.
I can’t drink your bravery forever, it burns going down.
Sometimes I just want to exhale without the label “weak,” without the world mistaking honesty for failure.
Let me speak, even if my words leak salt and sorrow.
Don’t hand me depression and call it dignity.
If tears offend your tradition, good, let them flood it.
I’d rather drown honest than live pretending I’m steel.
After all, even lions cry, you just don’t stay long enough to hear it roar in pain.
@doddyokelo
The Black Gold
She is a Black woman, the black gold,
The first melody of the world,
She is the color of earth after rain, rich, breathing, alive,
Her melanin glows like warm bronze kissed by the sun’s worship,
Her scent drips caramel and wild honey,
Her hips roll like soft thunder beneath silk skies,
Each outline a remnant of creation’s finest hour.
Her body, chiseled by the patient hands of eternity,
Waist cinched like whispered secrets of dusk,
Thighs smooth as riverstones, strong yet tender,
Breasts rise with the grace of new mornings,
Her skin, liquid gold beneath the calm of daylight.
Her face, a portrait where galaxies pause,
Eyes deep enough to drown both sorrow and sin,
Lips ripe with the sweetness of mercy,
Cheeks brushed with sunrise and quiet flame,
And when she smiles, even angels forget their songs.
@doddyokelo
How It Feels To Be Home
I am afraid,of the dark that breathes and shifts,
It bends and folds around the corners of my mind,
Where unseen eyes wait in shadowed silence,
And whispers crawl like wind through broken glass.
The night becomes a mouth, open and waiting,
And I am its trembling sound, half-alive, half-lost,
Reaching out for the sound of your name,
To anchor me where the light once stayed.
I see them, those figures born of fear’s design,
They lean against the walls like memories uninvited,
Their outlines blur in the dim, uncertain air,
And I cannot tell if they move or merely breathe.
They haunt the corners of my sight like regret,
Soft, cruel, and patient in their waiting,
Till your voice, gentle as dawn, loosens the dark,
And the room remembers how to breathe again.
I hear them too, the voices that hiss and murmur,
They tell me of endings that never began,
Of love that rusts beneath the weight of time.
They are not real, I tell myself, they are smoke,
Yet they know the cracks in my courage by name,
They slip through the seams of my silence,
Till your presence returns, steady and golden,
And their cruel chorus falls to dust.
Without you, fear builds its kingdom in my chest,
A fortress of shadows and unanswered prayers,
But when you come, the darkness loses its teeth.
You are the dawn that rinses the night of its grief,
The calm after thunder, the stillness after rain.
You make the corners smooth again,
And I, once a ghost in my own house,
Find my pulse, steady and sure, in your light.
So come, my calm, my gentle resurrection,
Wrap your warmth around this frightened skin,
Hold me like a promise you mean to keep,
Till the dark forgets my name,
Till every whisper learns to fade,
Till the moon watches us without envy,
And the stars sing softly of peace.
Walk with me, down these hollow streets of thought,
Where my footsteps answer old fears,
Let your hand fit mine like sunlight fits morning,
Let our shadows melt into one.
For with you, the night forgets its hunger,
And even silence dares to dream again.
Come, fill this hollow where my heart once broke,
Plant your laughter in the cracks of my chest,
Let love grow where fear once built walls,
Let your light spill over my broken fields.
With you, every barren thing learns to bloom again,
The air tastes of spring, and I remember,
How it feels to be unafraid,
How it feels to be home.
So come, be my light, my refuge, my calm,
Walk with me until the dark forgets its way,
Hold me till the world grows quiet and kind.
For when you are here, the night stands still,
And even my ghosts bow in surrender,
For they, too, know your name means dawn.
@doddyokelo
Breathless
I feel her before she comes,
like dawn warming the edges of night.
Her nearness thrums through the silence,
a heartbeat the world listens to.
Even the wind slows to taste her name,
and I, I become a prayer, waiting to be answered.
Her eyes hold a language older than words,
pulling me into their calm storm.
Every glance writes poetry across my skin,
each smile softens the edges of my doubts.
Her touch is not flame, but light,
Light that teaches darkness how to love.
I remember the way her laughter wove through stillness,
how it stayed, gentle and endless,
like rain deciding to rest on petals.
The air bends around her presence,
and I swear my soul breathes in her arms,
finding its home where her warmth begins.
When she is near, time forgets to move.
My thoughts lose their walls, my heart, its guard.
There is nothing left but the cadence of breath,
the soft promise between our eyes,
and the tender madness of being known
without ever needing to speak.
If love could be touched, it would feel like her,
a slow bloom beneath the ribs,
a soft yearning that never asks to end.
She is the pause between my heartbeats,
the reason silence feels like music,
and longing feels like grace.
And when she leaves, she doesn’t really go.
Her warmth remains in the corners of my chest,
her voice stays folded in the folds of memory.
Even distance cannot dim her ,
for she lives not in sight, but in soul,
and my soul has never learned to let her go.
@doddyokelo
What the Night Knows
There are nights her absence feels like smoke,
curling through my chest, choking the calm.
I taste her memory in the hollow of silence,
where shadows bruise the edges of my thoughts.
Even the moon looks away, ashamed to watch
a man unravel for what he cannot hold.
Her scent is a ghost of warmth that drifts still,
sliding through the dark like forbidden mercy.
I reach for her in the ruins of sleep,
but touch only air that trembles and retreats.
Longing becomes a wound I tend in secret,
Pain that ripens instead of fades.
Desire throbs beneath my ribs, uninvited,
a wild animal pacing in the dark of my chest.
It claws at reason, begging for release,
but all I have are sounds, soft and cruel.
Her voice, a phantom flame,
burns through the marrow of my restraint.
Every breath betrays me,
it fills with her, spills her, breaks me.
The world outside is still and indifferent,
yet inside, storms whisper her name.
She exists in the spaces between heartbeats,
where silence grows teeth and feeds on hope.
If love is holy, then longing is its sin,
and I am forever kneeling at its altar.
I’ve bartered peace for memory,
and find myself worshipping what once was touch.
Her absence wears the scent of rain,
sweet, cold, and never staying.
So I burn in quiet devotion,
in the hollow glow of what could have been.
The night knows my secret, it sighs it low,
under the veil of stars, patient and cruel.
I am the thirst that calls her name in vain,
the light that dies waiting to be seen.
@doddyokelo
A Place Only We Know
Meet me,
in the quiet tremor between your heartbeat and your breath,
where silence breathes itself into longing,
and the shadows of your heart whisper soft songs
only the two of us can hear.
There, love hides barefoot,
waiting for us to arrive without words,
without fear, only pulse and promise.
Meet me among the stars,
where ambition burns like incense,
and the galaxies whisper of us in light-years.
See how my eyes hold constellations
that spell your name in patient fire,
how even the dark bends slightly
to make room for our glow.
Meet me where the ocean exhales,
where the horizon trembles like a secret,
and salt baptizes every forgotten pain.
Let the tide pull us clean of yesterday,
let the water write forgiveness
across our skin until we gleam
with something close to forever.
Meet me in the forest’s open breath,
where trees lean close as witnesses,
and sunlight spills like honey between their fingers.
Here, the earth sings beneath our feet,
a lullaby older than sorrow.
We’ll rest where roots remember love
more deeply than words ever could.
Meet me upon the drifting clouds,
that tender border where heaven blushes
against the skin of the world.
Let’s waltz on vapor,
our laughter scattering like rain over cities asleep,
each drop a note of joy
falling back to where we began.
Meet me atop the mountain’s breath,
where air is thin but truth is thick.
Breathe me in until your lungs forget
where you end and I begin.
Let the wind carry our names into eternity,
two syllables of devotion
resonating through stone and sky alike.
Meet me, my love,
not in time, but beyond it.
Not in place, but in presence.
Anywhere the soul dares to open,
any moment brave enough to bloom.
Meet me there,
where everything is still,
and we are infinite.
Daughter of The Mountain
I met her on an afternoon
when the sun burned low,
spilling gold across the earth
as though the day itself leaned close
to let slip its quiet confessions.
She was slim-thick,
a flame held steady in the wind,
with a presence that filled the space
more surely than height or breadth could command.
Her skin bore the quiet radiance
of fertile Kenyan earth after rain,
luminous, alive with the memory of rivers.
Her beauty was the beauty that stays,
like a song remembered long
after the singer has gone.
Her eyes were wide, dark pools,
holding the innocence of unspoken dreams,
and the fierce pride of the hills,
green and ancient,
keepers of stories older than memory.
When she looked, it was not merely at you,
it was into you,
as though the soul were something
she had always known,
and only sought to confirm.
Her laughter was small, quick,
yet it carried,
like the delicate chiming of cowbells
drifting from a far valley.
Her movements, precise, almost shy,
the way a swallow folds its wings before flight,
yet within them was a grace
no stage could rehearse.
She was not made of ornaments or excess
but of silences,
of natural songs,
of that soft balance between fragility
and unyielding strength.
To call her beautiful
would be to simplify what was infinitely complex.
She was the outline of twilight
against the ridge,
the fragrance of tea leaves
crushed between fingers,
the silence of evening rain on tin roofs.
She was the Mountain itself,
its promise, its mystery,
its unbroken spirit made flesh.
And in her presence,
I felt the world pause,
as though even time leaned in
to watch her pass.
@doddyokelo
The Price of Exposure
You’re probably going to hate me for this,
for saying what your conscience whispers
when you sign another “volunteer” form
with a smile that smells of we value young people.
You’ll roll your eyes, perhaps, and sip your latte of hypocrisy,
thinking, here comes another entitled youth,
but entitlement, dear boss,
isn’t wanting to eat after working all day.
You strip me, layer by layer, of what I call wealth,
my knowledge, my wit, my sweat, my small fire.
You harvest my brilliance like cheap sugarcane,
sweet in your tea, but I can’t even taste it.
You call it capacity building, I call it theft,
a robbery wrapped in an MOU,
my “voluntary spirit” framed for your annual report,
while my rent notice glares at me like a sermon.
You say you’re driving the SDGs, how noble of you,
yet “No Poverty” only applies to your side of the table.
Number one for the world, zero for your interns.
You speak of “empowering youth” in PowerPoint slides,
but I am the unpowered socket,
feeding your lights while mine flicker out.
Your sustainability is built on our hunger,
your progress paved with our unpaid hours.
You call it exposure, and oh, what a beautiful word,
it sounds almost like opportunity, until you taste it.
Exposure doesn’t buy food; it buys silence.
You frame my effort as experience,
but experience doesn’t buy groceries, does it?
You say, We’re giving you a chance to grow!
but even weeds grow, sir, without applause.
You’re not nurturing me, you’re grazing me.
You post us on banners, smiling youth in motion,
while your pockets jingle with the funds meant for impact.
You call us family, until invoices arrive.
You teach us leadership, yet lead us nowhere,
preach partnership, yet practice servitude.
You love to say the youth are the future,
as if tomorrow is a fairy tale
where our unpaid labour finally blossoms into paychecks.
But I am not the leader of tomorrow, my friend,
I am breathing, burning, now.
I can lead today, even with pockets empty
and dignity frayed at the edges.
You can’t buy me with a sweet smile or a promise,
I’ve had enough candy-coated lies to rot a generation.
Respect is currency too,
but even that you spend carelessly.
Every “volunteer opportunity” feels like déjà vu,
different desk, same exploitation.
We bring innovation, you bring excuses.
We bring ideas, you bring coffee orders.
And when the impact stories roll out,
you wear our work like a medal,
while we wear exhaustion like second skin,
our dreams taxed by your benevolence.
So here I stand, unapologetic, yes, but sober still.
I’m not asking for charity, just fairness.
Pay us for our time, our skill, our sweat.
We can’t build a better world with empty pockets.
You call it volunteering; I call it slow bleeding.
You say it’s for the love of service,
but love without respect is labour without pay,
and we, the youth, are done being the invoice you never clear.
@doddyokelo
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