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

Rivers of My Own Making

There is no universe in which I am sitting down to read how someone built a whole cereal shop from a single grain of rice. Never. I respect the effort it took to type all that optimism, but no. Your road doesn’t bend like mine, and I refuse to be shamed into feeling inadequate simply because my idea of joy moves to a different sun. If you want to pray, pray. I pray too, my brother. We are all sinners anyway. The only difference is how we manage our sins. Mine are personal. I enjoy them quietly and carry the consequences alone. Yours arrive with collateral damage, cloaked in lies, dipped in theft, and sanctified from the pulpit. A pastor from hell, if we’re being honest. Cut me some slack, man.

2025 has been incredible. Financially, the fireworks stayed away, but the lessons arrived on time. Lessons that stay. I learned how to take care of myself by leaning into what I love. I learned that some opinions bloom like flowers but are made of dust, pretty to see, hollow to hold. I learned the strength that lives in subtle sighs, the subtle mastery in watching without interference, the rare discipline of letting words fall around me without reaching for a reply. And perhaps the hardest lesson of all. When the lights dim, the applause fades, and the crowd vanishes into the night, only your own shadow remains. That truth seeps in like a silent river, carrying its weight with quiet insistence, tracing the contours of the soul, unseen yet unstoppable, leaving freedom in its wake.

I carry no resolutions scribbled on paper for 2026. Free of banners of ambition and untouched by public drumbeats, I carry instead intentions. I plan to be better. To build myself financially. To chase what I want without hesitation or apology. And yes, I plan to cut people off, gently but firmly, when their presence drains more than it gains. Whether I leave or stay, your life will continue uninterrupted. I’ve made peace with that long ago. I plan to do more business, take bolder risks, and travel wider, seeing places for their stories, feeling the streets beneath my feet, tasting lives outside my own. Unfettered by heralded plans, letting the quiet flowering of my journey reveal its own story.

Still, gratitude stays. Deeply. For the hands that steadied me when my footing slipped. For those who pulled me out of trenches without demanding explanations. For those who trusted my strength enough to place opportunity in my hands. For that, a special medal goes to Sheila Chepkirui Yegon. Some people are mere passing notes in your life, others are chords that resonate. Sheila is a river of melodies, a living network that carries you forward, flowing steady, connecting what was, what is, and what could be. May God widen her path and multiply her grace.

And always, my brother Stephen Ochieng (Soo Ochieng), take your flowers, bana. Always. We remain stubborn believers in the impossible, still dreaming with the audacity of people who refuse to shrink their visions too early.

This isn’t a storm, it’s alignment,
It’s growth,
It’s choosing your lane, and driving without explaining the route.

Solo Drive

I’ve marked no map with ink or public pride,
To show the woods where I intend to go.
The things I seek have nowhere left to hide,
And what I reap is what I choose to sow.
I take the path where fewer shadows bide,
And leave the crowds to talk of what they know.
The fence I mend is built of quiet stone,
To keep the peace and part the draining guest.
A man can walk a standard mile alone,
And find in silence all he needs of rest.
For every seed of will that I have grown,
I ask no leave to put it to the test.
So let the wheels engage their rhythmic song,
Across the hills and through the turning lane.
I owe no word to prove where I belong,
Or why I chose the sun above the rain.
The drive is short, the inner light is strong,
I go my way, and need not explain.

@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

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

SILENCE IS THE DEATH OF US

Dear Corporate,

I know you like your linen white.
White as milk.
With no stains, no creases,
And no voices too loud or opinions too strong.
You want clean reputations,
Clean photos, clean silence.

You like me better
When I just show up, smile, hit targets,
Say “yes sir” to everything and go home.
You like me better
When I keep the fire in my belly out of your boardroom.
When I don’t question, when I don’t care too much.

But here’s what you forget,

I was me before I became your employee.
I had a voice before I had your email signature.
I had convictions before I had a clock-in code.
And I’m not about to trade all that in
For job security and polite applause.

I love justice.
The same way you love KPIs.
I care about this country,
The same way you care about brand image.

So when you see me at a protest,
Don’t flinch.
I’m not unstable.
I’m not rebellious.
I’m just awake.

When I call out corruption,
I’m not ruining your name,
I’m protecting it.
Because if systems rot,
Your success does too.

When I tweet in anger,
It’s not because I’m angry all the time.
It’s because I still believe that things can change.
That voices matter. That silence is too heavy to carry anymore.

I’m not asking for much.

Just this,
Don’t punish me for caring.
Don’t blacklist me for believing.
Don’t put me in a corner
Because I refuse to play blind.

I want to work.
I want to grow.
But I also want to live in a country where truth doesn’t cost you your job.

Let me speak.
Let me stand.
Let me protest, cry out, and still walk into your office on Monday morning with purpose.
Because fighting for what’s right
And showing up for work
Aren’t enemies.
They’re both signs I give a DAMN.

So no,
I’m not mad.
I’m not disloyal.
I’m just patriotic.
And I won’t whisper that.

Sincerely,
Still the right person for the job. Just louder.

@okelododdychitchats

Silenceisthedeathofus #Speak #PoeticJustice #Justice #Justice4AlbertOjwang #SpeakUp #Corruption #EndCorruption

It must Be a Beautiful Death

It Must Be a Beautiful Death

Let it come like a sigh,
like the silence between waves,
like the slow separation of a ribbon,
loosened by the hands of time.
No violence. No suddenness.
Just the peaceful folding of the day into night,
a quiet hand-over to the pull of the tide.

Let it not be an end,
but an opening,
a door swinging wide to something big and golden,
a breath released, not stolen.
Let it feel like stepping into warm water,
like sinking into silk,
like the weight of the world slipping from tired shoulders.

Something will rise from the silence.
It always does.
A blade of green through frost-bitten earth,
a flame that flickers but never dies,
a heart that stops only to be remembered
in the sound of another’s breath.
Life does not go. It stays.
It clings to the air, to the hands that once held it,
to the laughter built into the walls of an old house.

It must be a beautiful death,
the kind that smiles instead of weeps,
that glows instead of dims,
that steps lightly into the unknown,
leaving warmth where it once stood.
Not a Disapearance, but a soft dissolve,
like sugar in tea,
like smoke curling into the sky.

Something sweet will remain.
A voice Singing in the quiet of morning,
a scent-faint yet familiar-caught on the wind.
The way their name still tastes on your tongue.
Love is stubborn.
It does not bow to time.
It finds itself into the cracks of your bones,
into the spaces between dreams.

And something great will rise from the silence
A light in the dark,
a constellation drawn from the ashes,
a name that refuses to be forgotten.
No one is ever truly gone
if their love still stains the walls of the world.

It must be a beautiful death,
not because it does not pain,
but because it matters,
because it leaves fingerprints on the soul,
because it whispers through the wind,

I was here. I loved. I lived.
And somewhere, somehow, I still do.

@okelododdychitchats

If I Speak, I May Dissapear

The sun scorches the ground and the wind stirs restless among trees,
There are whispers no one speaks aloud.
This is a land of open skies and heavy silences,
Where fear lives close to the tongue.
If I speak, I may disappear.

There was a time when voices rose like a morning tide,
Songs of freedom swept through the hills,
Children dreamed of megaphones,
Their words carried far and wide,
But now, whispers turn into silence,
Muted colors fading into gray.

That’s Kenya for you,
A country of open skies and closed mouths,
Where history’s murmurs still ring
“Nchi ya Kwanza” sang of land, of sovereignty,
Yet here we are,
Gathered beneath fragile roofs,
Afraid to shake the walls of comfort.

Freedom of speech ?
A dandelion crushed under heavy boots.
“Speak up,” they say,
But the claws of consequence lurk close,
Each word a risk, each sentence a threat,
A storm brewing on the horizon,
Every raindrop a truth
That floods the streets,
Only to vanish into silence.

In the market square,
Eyes flicker with stories not told,
Lips press tight as fingers point
At faces of power,
But silence costs less
Than the price of speaking truth.

At dinner tables,
Ideas clash like spoons in a bowl,
A family walks the line
Between safety and outrage.
One wrong word,
And the room holds its breath.

Beneath it all,
The weight of freedom lies,
Written deep in scars,
Buried in graves of those who dared.
And what of the poets,
The dreamers who once danced with danger?
Now they tread softly,
Pens hovering above paper,
Caught between courage and caution.

On the shores of Lake Victoria,
The fishermen watch the waters,
Their mouths sealed tighter
Than the nets they cast.
For even here,
The law grips tighter than any tide.

Still,
Hope refuses to die.
It grows like grass and fern between cracks in the pavement,
It rises in laughter, in hands held high.
It blooms in the smallest corners,
In murals painted on concrete walls,
In songs hummed beneath breath.

If I speak, I may disappear.
But even silence carries a rhythm,
A beat that cannot be stilled.
For every voice quieted,
Ten more rise.
For every dream crushed,
A thousand seeds scatter.

We are the embers,
We are the sparks,
And no storm can put us out.
If I speak, I may disappear.
But if I stay silent,
Who will tell our story?

@okelododdychitchats

The Quiet Lies

It’s early, just before dawn,
when the world should be quiet,
but there’s this restless hum,
like something’s brewing,
just out of reach,
just under the surface.

That’s how these stories start,
not with dragons or heroes,
but with real people
getting swallowed whole
by a world too busy to notice.

See how they twist it?
An abduction becomes
a headline.
A headline becomes
a show.
And suddenly, tragedy is entertainment.

“Mara, they weren’t even abducted,”
As if a smile in a photo somehow proves you’re okay.
“Look, they’re well-fed. They’re fine.”

But are they?
What does freedom mean
when fear follows you home
and sleeps in your bed?

Did they really have to die
for you to believe they were abducted?
Do they need to spill their trauma
for all to see?
Do they have to cry
for their truth to matter?
Isn’t the fear in their eyes,
the shake in their voice,
already enough?

Say it,
and the sycophants will twist your words,
speaking with honeyed lies,
shrugging it off…
They’re just politicians anyway.

They’ll tell you it’s complicated.
They’ll say, “Things are being handled.”
They’ll dress their deceit
in smooth, practiced tones,
their voices bending like shadows
on the evening news.

And behind the scenes,
nothing changes.
Because the truth isn’t a press release.
It’s what happens when the cameras turn off.
It’s in the silence between the headlines.
It’s in the questions no one’s answering.

And while we chase distractions,
real problems rot in the dark.
Borders fall apart.
Hunger gnaws at homes
too far from the spotlight.

This isn’t chaos by accident.
It’s chaos by design.
A game of look over here
while they tear everything down over there.

Don’t let them trick you.
Don’t trust the shiny things.
This world is full of mirrors,
and they’re hoping you won’t notice
the strings behind the curtain.

Every headline is a magic trick.
Every outrage is a smoke bomb.
And while we argue
over who said what
and who’s to blame,
they keep moving the pieces, writing new rules for a game we didn’t agree to play.

Wake up.
Families are broken.
Communities are bleeding.
And all they give us
are statements wrapped in lies
and promises that disappear
the moment we blink.

Look deeper.
Ask harder questions.
Don’t settle for their version of the story.
They’ll tell you It’s too complicated for us to understand,
but that’s just another trick.

This isn’t a show.
It’s real.
And we deserve better
than lights, cameras, and soundbites.

We deserve answers.
We deserve justice.
We deserve the truth,
no matter how messy it is,
no matter how much it hurts.

So stop.
Think.
Push back.
Don’t just watch from the sidelines
while they play us for fools.

We have the power to end the show.
We have the power to write a new story.
One where fear doesn’t win.
One where hope doesn’t get sold for headlines.

This isn’t freedom.
It’s a performance.
And it’s time we tear it down and start again.

Because real life isn’t a script.
It’s ours to shape.
And justice,
justice isn’t a show.
It’s a fight worth having.

#ENDABDUCTIONSKE

@okelododdychitchats