After

It didn’t fall so much as it unfolded.
One minute, the sky was a familiar ceiling,
and the next, a bruise began to spread from the center out,
smothering the sun until the light felt thin,
brittle enough to snap between my fingers.

You don’t realize how much the light holds you up
until it’s gone.

Now, the air is thick with the soot of burned-out stars.
The iron draft of a closing door has changed everything,
it’s a predatory thing.
It’s in my bones now, pulling my shoulders toward the dirt,
turning my footsteps into heavy prayers that no one hears.
My knees have forgotten the habit of standing.

There is a cold, dense knot where my chest used to be,
a collapsed star, a private black hole
feeding on the scraps of my better days.
It doesn’t just take, it erases.
It has swallowed the before, the maybe, and the us,
leaving only this heavy, crippled silence
where my heart used to beat.

@doddyokelo

AND YET, WE VOTE

WHO PROTECTS THE PEOPLE FROM THE POLICE ?

You may write us off,
dismiss us ,
ignore us in Parliament halls padded with stolen wealth,
but still, we see

We are the country beneath your motorcades,
the hands that build and break,
the voices cracking in the dust
because hope costs too much now.

And yet,
we vote.

We vote for thieves in clean suits

We vote for wolves draped in our flags,

Enough.

We are tired.
Tired of job descriptions reading “Must be connected.”
Tired of degrees gathering dust
while our dreams starve in silence.

We are tired of joblessness turned into weaponry,
young men hired cheap to kill our own voices,
paid to break bones they’ve never healed in their own lives.

Tired of watching peaceful protesters
shot dead,
while those who loot in daylight
are guarded like royalty.

Tired of asking:
“Who protects the people from the police?”

Tired of staged outrage,
press conferences filled with air,
and politicians who only remember their roots
when it’s time to lie again.

You fight for positions, not for people.
You dine with the devil,
then kneel in churches too small for your sins.

You debate your egos on live TV
as our people dig trenches
not for roads,
but for graves.

You die to be seen.
But we die because we’re ignored.

Kenya is choking.
On debt.
On lies.
On the stink of promises unkept.

We are not asking.
We are telling.

This time, we vote with memory.
With pain.
With names.
With tears that learned how to speak.

This time,
you will not scare us with teargas.
You will not buy us with t-shirts.
You will not distract us with empty tribal drums.

We will remember who was silent when we bled.
We will remember who smiled while we starved.
We will remember who disappeared our brothers
and called us TREASONOUS CRIMINALS.

We are not the children you once fooled.
We have grown teeth.
We have grown rage.
And we are coming.

So let the ballot tremble.
Let your seats shake.
Let the ground beneath your stolen homes shift.

Because next time,
we are not just voting.

We are reclaiming.

And if you still don’t listen,
then hear this:

We are not afraid.
We are not asleep.
We are not yours.
Not anymore.

@Okelododdychitchats

#RUTOMUSTGO #ENDPOLICEBRUTALITY #RAGEANDCOURAGE
#JUSTICEFORELIJOSHUA

I will not Dim my Light

If I do all you want today,
Will your love shift?
Will your arms stretch wide,
Wide enough to hold the ghost of me?

I have danced on the edge of your wanting,
Spun circles ‘round your longings,
Bent my back, bowed my head,
Tamed the fire in my chest
To keep your comfort warm.

You ask for little things.
A smile where silence sits.
A nod when my spirit shakes its head.
You ask for more.
To silence my no’s, to trim my edges,
To mold away the man
Who dares to stand whole.

I have walked your road,
Worn my feet down to whispers,
Lost my name in the fading call of your voice.
But tell me,
If I do all you want today,
Will I wake up tomorrow
And know the shape of my own shadow?

I have learned the lessons of yielding,
Learned to tuck my thunder away,
To let the winds of your needs
Blow me soft, blow me small,
Blow me into something easy to hold.

But what of me?
What of the man who sings her own name?
Who does not shrink,
Who does not fall silent,
Who does not twist himself
Into the shape of another’s desire?

I will not be whittled down,
I will not be swallowed whole.
Love should not ask for a life
That forgets how to live.

So I ask you,
If I stand tall, if I stay true,
If I let my wild bloom,
Will you still call my name?
Or will you fade,
A dream that could not bear
The weight of my wings?

I will not trade my fire for comfort.
I will not barter my soul for belonging.
If I must walk alone,
Let my feet find steady ground.
Let my heart beat in its own time.
Let my love be limitless and unchained.

For love should lift,
Not bind.
It should open doors,
Not lock them shut.
If I stay,
Let it be as I am,
Unshaken. Unshamed. Unafraid.

And if you must go,
Go gently.
But know this,
I will not dim my light,
Not for you.
Not for anyone.

I was born to shine.

@okelododdychitchats