You took five years
and slit its throat without a pulse of regret,
a neat execution of history.
Then you stood on top of the ruin
pointing at me,
pretending the blood was mine to answer for
when your hands were still wet from the work.
You wanted miracles
from a man wrestling rent every month,
3,500 shillings dragging their feet.
You wanted a Mercedes Benz
from a man still begging breath from broken mornings.
I gave what I couldn’t afford,
pockets stuffed with dues to God,
a wallet running on fumes and delusion.
But somehow you demanded
Paris dreams from a pocket-of-poverty stricken reality.
Still, I loved you
like a vigil in the dark.
I took you out in a mall with what I could raise,
bought you a gift I imagined your skin would claim,
yet it gathers dust where you dropped it.
And when you said the gesture was useless,
I finally understood,
you meant me.
Tag: care
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
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
Love, Receipted
You call me lazy,
as if rest were rebellion,
as if the absence of a paycheck meant
I’d married idleness and sworn fidelity to failure.
You think I wake each morning to romance poverty,
to sip on the bitter tea of rejection
and call it breakfast.
You think I don’t hunt for work,
darling, I’ve applied so hard the internet knows my name.
I’ve learned new skills until my mind wheezes from exhaustion,
repackaged my dreams in “professional tone,”
and written cover letters that could melt granite.
Still, the silence from employers breathes louder
than any sermon on hard work.
But go on, roll your eyes like coins in a rich man’s pocket.
You love the performance of pity, don’t you?
The way you sigh,
You wear my struggle like a badge
that says “look what I tolerate.”
You hold my empty wallet against my neck
like a priest offering salvation through mockery.
Your friends, the walking bank accounts,
toast to success with imported laughter.
They look at me the way one studies
a museum exhibit labeled Before Success.
And you,
you shrink beside them,
embarrassed to be seen loving someone
who doesn’t come with receipts.
I know I can’t afford dinner dates,
but baby, I can give you poetry,
written with hunger’s ink,
where every word costs a piece of my pride.
You want steak, I offer metaphors,
you want champagne, I bring conversation.
But apparently, love without a tip is just noise.
You say I make excuses,
as if failure were a choice I make before breakfast.
Man, I’ve tried,
tried until my hope broke its spine
from bending too long under your expectations.
But effort doesn’t trend, does it?
It’s not sexy on Instagram.
You used to look at me like promise,
now you look at me like pity dressed for dinner.
Your eyes audit my worth
like a cashier scanning expired dreams.
You don’t even say it out loud,
but your silence spells liability.
Love, it seems, needs a payslip now.
So go ahead, call me disgusting,
a broke ass night certified by circumstance.
Laugh with your friends,
they’ve earned their arrogance.
I’ll be here, broke but breathing,
scribbling poems on the back of rejection letters,
because even in poverty, darling,
I write better than they ever will live.
@doddyokelo
Stay With Me
I have never known a pain this sharp,
a hurt that stays in every breath,
as if sorrow has built a home inside my chest.
I sit here drowning in my own silence,
tears spilling like tides I cannot command,
wondering how I strayed,
wondering if I’ve lost the best part of me,
you.
I keep replaying my mistakes,
each one cutting deeper than the last,
and I fear that in their shadow,
your love for me might dim.
The thought alone unmakes me.
It is a heaviness I cannot outrun,
a shame that knots itself into my bones.
If only regret could mend,
if only apologies could erase,
I would gather up every fragment of your hurt
and carry it away until you felt light again.
But healing, I know, is not so quick.
It asks for patience. It asks for trust.
“I’m sorry” feels too small,
too fragile for the weight of what I mean.
Yet it is the truth on my tongue,
and I speak it with trembling hope.
Because we have weathered storms before,
you and I,
and somehow we’ve always come through
stronger, side by side.
Still, I know you deserve better
than the hurt I’ve caused.
I hate myself for placing this burden on you.
But if your heart can find space
for one more chance,
I promise I will spend every day
proving love right again,
proving us right again.
@okelododdychitchats
The Hour of Resignation
Is not the deep, dark rest a better plea,
When every single waking breath is war?
What am I fighting for, and what’s in store
But the same old tide that washes over me?
I searched the sunrise for a silver coin,
A simple piece of joy I could rejoin,
But found the coffer empty, shut, and cold,
The story of my striving left untold.
They promise gain, a comfort to be won,
If I just keep my shoulder to the stone.
But I have carried burdens all alone
From the first shadow cast beneath the sun.
I’ve seen no profit, felt no easing touch,
Just giving everything and getting much
Less than the peace the simple stones enjoy,
A hollow effort that I can’t employ.
Look on the record, read the final count,
There is no happiness beneath this sky.
The truth is written in the tear-wet eye,
The only offering from a spent account.
Every hard-won moment just a trade
For a new hurt, a deeper struggle made,
The only harvest that my hands can claim
Is the slow, bitter knowledge of the flame.
I tell you plainly, I can take no more.
The line is drawn, the final cord is cut.
My stubborn spirit, now locked in a rut,
Cannot hold past the breaking of the core.
This weight is not a thing you lift and clear,
It is the atmosphere of sorrow here.
The mind gives way, the tired will descends,
And all the forced endurance finally ends.
The anchors slip, the vessel has no guide,
The heart’s great drum beat only low and faint.
I won’t pretend, nor make myself a saint,
I only know I can no longer hide.
I am too fractured to be fixed again,
Too soaked in the relentless, icy rain,
The scaffolding of hope has bowed and split,
And I am done with all the grit and wit.
So let this truth be clear when I am gone,
My failing was not weakness of the soul.
I did not stumble short of any goal,
But fell beneath the weight of every dawn.
It was not sickness, foe, or sudden blast,
Life Itself came for me, and overcame at last.
The battle’s over. Hear the final word,
I lay my weary head down, like a bird.
@@okelododdychitchats
New, and New Again
There is a lantern burning in the darkened orchard, its flame steady though the winds conspire against it. So is my heart, unshaken by storm, for it has taken your name as its eternal wick. No night has been so deep that your light did not find me there.
There is a river that bends and bends again, yet never loses its way to the sea. My devotion follows. Each thought of you is a current, each dream of you is a tide, until all of me is poured into the great ocean of your being.
There is a star that stays when the dawn has claimed the sky, a lone sentinel of night’s mystery. That star is the memory of your eyes, refusing to fade though the day demands dominion. Even in the crowded brilliance of life, it is you I see, burning beyond the reach of time.
There is a music that no instrument can summon, yet I hear it whenever your spirit brushes mine. It is the song of beginnings, the hymn that shepherded the first lovers through gardens of wonder. It comes to me as though the world were created anew each moment I think of you.
There is a door that opens in silence, where absence becomes presence, and distance is folded into breath. Each time you cross my mind, you do not return as you were, but as something more, a revelation sharpened by longing, softened by tenderness.
There is a secret, older than scripture yet younger than every heartbeat: that to love is to discover eternity within the hour. I touch your soul not as one who has known, but as one astonished still, as though my lips had just now learned the miracle of your name.
There is, at last, this vow, not sculpted in stone, but written in the quickening blood of a heart undone. I will meet you again and again as though for the first time, a pilgrim at the gates of wonder. And when the world is ash and the sky a forgotten scroll, my love shall still be there, new, and new again.
@okelododdychitchats
In the Dust, A Pulse
I like to seek the treasure hidden in the dust.
To lift what is broken, what others have thrown aside,
and hold it until it speaks.
There is a life in things the eye does not see,
a cup that has forgotten the lips it once touched,
a blade that once sang in the air,
a flower that still dreams of sun though it is ash.
I do not take them as they are.
I search for what they wanted to be.
I listen for the pulse beneath their silence,
for the promise that time could not keep.
And in that quiet,
I find something greater than beauty,
the truth that nothing is ever truly lost,
only waiting to be seen again.
@okelododdychitchats
We Met Again
I saw her again,
the girl I once loved.
Time had touched her kindly.
She wore a white dress, soft as a prayer,
and it clung to her form
like the wind belongs to the sea.
She was lovelier than I remembered,
not just in face,
but in the quiet grace she carried.
Clean. Still.
Like a page I might’ve turned too soon.
The dress, white as chapel vows,
did justice to every curve,
each one a line in the poem I once left unfinished.
She smiled,
not bitter, not bold, just enough
to stir something old in me.
She said I looked different too,
more like the man she always pictured beside her.
Stronger, quieter, maybe even kinder.
And for a moment,
in the gentle silence between us,
I think we both wondered,
not with regret,
but with a wistful sort of hope,
if the pages we wrote apart
could still make sense together.
@okelododdychitchats
A Rose for You, My Love
The red rose sings of wild fire,
The white one breathes like the sea,
One burns with untamed longing,
One rests in serenity.
But I bring you a soft blush petal,
Not white, not crimson bright,
It holds the warmth of sunrise
And the still of falling night.
For love is not just quiet,
Nor only made to burn,
It’s the tender pull of yearning
And the joy when you return.
So here, my love, this rosebud,
It’s not bold, but it is true.
It blooms with gentle longing,
Like the way I bloom for you.
@okelododdychitchats
okelododdychitchats 