She is beautiful, yes,
but beauty grows fangs in the dark.
She tells you she’s out with a friend,
yet her truth is curled on another man’s chest,
his heartbeat pounding, the thud of wanting,
a sound you were never allowed to hear.
His fingers roam through her hair,
slow, sure,
mapping a tenderness she once withheld.
She loves it,
the salt of his sweat,
the wild brush of his chest hair,
the animal warmth that keeps her there.
She is not busy, brother.
She is not home.
She is answering a call
you were never invited to,
the quiet work of sheets and bodies
moving without guilt.
Her phone isn’t dead,
your name is.
Blocked.
So silent you can hear your own hope collapsing.
The things she hoarded from you,
laughter, softness, time,
fall easily into his open hands.
She gives him the light she swore she never had.
Rise from the wreckage,
rebuild the kingdom of yourself.
Leave her ghost behind
and grow into your better name.
There is life beyond this wound.
And love, real love,
will meet you where you stand,
yours to keep.
Tag: relationship
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
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
I Miss You More
I feel it everywhere.
In the quiet moments,
in the places you used to sit,
in the way the air feels a little heavier
without your presence in it.
There’s a space,
not loud or dramatic,
just a soft kind of empty
that follows me around.
I try to fill it with noise,
with work, with words,
but nothing really fits.
Because it’s you that’s missing.
I don’t just miss you in the big ways,
I miss the small things too.
The glance. The laugh. The comfort.
And somehow,
I just keep missing you more.
@okelododdychitchats
IF YOU LOVE ME, HOLD ME
Hold me,
not just my hand,
but all of me.
Wrap your arms around my body
like you know what it’s been through.
Like you’ve heard the storms it carries
and still want to dance in the rain with me.
Take my hand,
don’t ask where we’re going.
Let’s run,
not to escape,
but to feel free
for the first time in a long time.
Hold my heart,
gently,
like it’s the last soft thing in a hard world.
Place it close to yours,
let them beat together
in a rhythm only we understand.
Touch my waist like it’s sacred.
Pull me into your chest
like you’re pulling me into forever.
And when you kiss me,
don’t make it rushed.
Kiss me like you’re trying to teach time
how to slow down.
If one tear falls—just one,
don’t panic.
Wipe it.
Don’t ask if I’m okay,
just look at me like you see everything
and say,
“It’s going to be alright.”
And mean it.
When I say I’m cold,
don’t go looking for a sweater.
Be the warmth.
Be the safe place I curl into
when the night gets too loud.
And when I say “I love you,”
don’t whisper it back.
Say it like a vow.
Say it like your soul recognizes mine.
Say it like you’re not going anywhere.
Because real love
isn’t made of grand gestures.
It’s in how you stay,
how you see me,
how you reach for me in silence.
So if you love me,
hold me,
not just in your arms,
but in your everyday.
@Okelododdychitchats
To You, Tonight
You say you don’t read much.
But somehow, you always read me.
And maybe, without knowing,
You taught me how to bleed through the pen,
To shape silence into syllables,
To hold space for feeling,
Even when the world is loud.
So tonight,
As night settles in a robe of velvet quiet,
I write not to ask, nor to explain,
But to bless you, softly.
When the night folds her arms around the sky,
And the stars murmur lullabies in silver tongues,
May your burdens loosen,
May your spirit stretch.
For even the moon, full in her glow,
Knows the ache of holding light too long.
Rest, love.
Lay down the weight of unspoken things.
Let dreams drift in like gentle winds
Through the windows of your mind.
Don’t dwell,
Not on what didn’t grow,
Not on what wasn’t said.
Just sleep.
And let this be the lull in the poem of your life,
The stanza where you exhale.
Goodnight, beloved.
Goodnight.
@okelododdychitchats
When I fall in Love
When I fall in love,
there will be no trumpet,
no choir of angels rehearsing hallelujah,
just the quiet breaking of bread
between two hands that have known hunger.
I will not ask the sun to shine,
it will.
I will not beg the wind to be still
it will not.
But you,
you will laugh like sugar spilling from a jar
and I will remember
how joy can be messy
and still be beautiful.
When I fall in love,
I will not be the half of a whole,
I will be
the whole of a whole
meeting another
who does not need
completing,
only witnessing.
There will be no ticking clock,
no red thread prophecy,
no trembling knees
(unless from laughter).
I will not call it fate.
I will call it choice.
I will choose you.
And choose you again.
Even when your smile falters,
even when your breath
carries thunder.
I will not write sonnets.
I will write grocery lists
with your name at the bottom
underlined twice.
We will argue about soup.
And make up in whispers
like old songs
that only the two of us remember.
When I fall in love,
I will not promise forever.
But I will give you every now
I can carry.
I will plant soft yeses
in the soil of every day.
I will hold space
for your shadow
and your shine.
And when I say goodbye,
(if goodbye must come)
it will be with the ache
of one who has lived
and not regretted
a single soft, unspoken
I love you.
When I fall in love,
it will not be a fairy tale.
It will be
a revolution
of two
sacred, flawed,
magnificent
souls
saying,
yes, still.
And you,
you will not be worshipped.
You will be
seen.
And that, my love,
is holy enough.
@okelododdychitchats
Everything Here Smells of You
Everything here smells of you.
And it’s driving me insane in the sweetest, slowest way.
The caution seat still wears your scent ,
like it misses you too,
like it knows something passed through it that doesn’t come around often.
The fleece blanket is basically you in thread and warmth.
I cover myself with it and swear I can hear your laugh if I’m quiet enough.
Even my chest,
my own damn skin,
smells like you stayed.
Like you pressed yourself into me and said, “Don’t forget.”
And I won’t.
Not with lips like yours, warm, like you know the secret to sunrise.
I imagine a kiss and it doesn’t even feel imaginary,
it feels like a memory I’m about to make again.
I love the way your waist fits in my hands,
like my fingers were carved with your shape in mind.
There’s something wild about that kind of symmetry.
You’re beautiful.
You’re art that didn’t ask to be admired,
but was anyway,
because how could the world not notice you?
@okelododdychitchats
okelododdychitchats 