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
Tag: Valentines
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
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
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
The Sound of Love (In Three Words)
There is a river in my chest,
its current stirred by longing.
I have wrestled with syllables,
wrestled them like Jacob with the angel,
and still, they slipped from me.
I’ve summoned sonnets like old friends,
dressed up my ache in velvet metaphors,
cradled my truth in gilded rhyme,
but still, the soul was unclothed.
Words, those proud and peacock things,
marched across parchment
but none bore the weight
of my trembling heart.
Then came silence.
And out of silence,
three humble drumbeats:
I. Love. You.
They stood,
not as grand orators,
but as gospel.
Simple.
Sacred.
Enough.
@okelododdychitchats
It’s Colonial, I Swear
What happened before the roses came ?
1. Cold Showers and Pink Suits
There’s a special place in hell for cold showers and it’s probably somewhere next to the queue at the passport office. And now you want me to willfully take one, shave, powder my neck, and wear that pink suit that makes me look like a soft loan? Just to go out on a date? Bruh. That’s not love; that’s martyrdom. I did not survive Nairobi water bills to be out here moisturizing for cold balconies and cappuccino dust.
2. Love in the Time of Third Parties
Who even decided that love needs to come with an invoice and VAT? Dating in this economy feels like trying to start a business on a chama budget. You spend thousands to sit across someone in a place where both of you are silently trying to gauge who is more emotionally unavailable, while the waitress thinks you’re about to propose.
3. The Whitewashing of Romance
Let’s talk about it: is the modern date a colonial export? Imported like jazz music and instant noodles? Because, really, how did our grandfathers do it? They didn’t need a date. They needed a strong back, a hoe, and a keen eye for dowry negotiation. Now we’re out here buying roses that die in 48 hours, basically love-shaped perishables and calling it romance.
4. Introverts Anonymous
I’m not antisocial. I’m pro-solitude. There’s a difference. Why must love always be on display, like it’s a talent show and we’re all auditioning for the role of “Emotionally Available Partner ”? Me, I prefer my affection with a side of silence. Just Netflix algorithms that understand me better than most people.
5. The Psychology of Smashing vs Smiling
Some dates feel more like interrogations with ambience. You’re sitting there, trying to chew tasteless pasta gracefully while wondering if she thinks your smile means “I like you” or “I’m just horny.” You’re sweating from trying to remember if you mentioned you were raised Christian or spiritual but not religious.
6. Date Inflation & Emotional Capitalism
Who decided that love must be shown through receipts? That emotional availability must be measured by how many brunches you’ve paid for? I’ve dated women who thought the absence of fine dining was the absence of love. Hey, the pepper in my githeri is a form of affection. Don’t let capitalism gaslight your heart.
7. Domestic Love, Anyone?
Let’s stay home. I can cook, I can serve, and I can even throw in bad jokes for seasoning. No need for that performative laughter at Java. I want us barefoot in the house, arguing about how much salt I put in the food. That, my friends, is real bonding. And I can pause to pee during the movie without missing the plot or the bill.
8. Public Displays of Affection Fatigue
What’s so romantic about someone interrupting your moment to ask “would you like sparkling or still?” Let me love you in sweatpants. Let’s laugh over burnt ugali. Let’s fall asleep on opposite ends of the couch and meet halfway in a dream. That’s the kind of love that doesn’t make it to Instagram, but lasts.
9. Love Without Logistics
The planning of dates stresses me more than the dating itself. Reservations, rides, fitting into attires from 2021, it’s a full-time job. Why can’t we date like we used to play kalongo in childhood? Spontaneous, anarchic, and mostly in someone’s house with limited adult supervision.
10. Let’s Redefine Romance
So no, I’m not taking cold showers for a warm table. That doesn’t mean I love less. I just love differently. Quietly. Deeply. With less garnish and more substance. If love is a language, I speak it fluently in slippers and home-cooked meals. The balcony is cold, the city is expensive, and my pink suit is for weddings only. Choose your battles wisely. Choose your love even wiser.
@okelododdychitchats
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
Fading Notes of The Heart
For the first time in my once-bright life,
I feel love slip away,
draining quietly from a heart
that once brimmed with warmth and fire.
Because of her,
passion now feels like a distant memory,
her eyes, once alive like sapphire stars,
now hold no light for me.
The smile that once lifted my world
has faded into something I barely remember.
I knew love once,
I felt it in her touch,
in the way she made life seem full of wonder.
But now, that wonder feels hollow,
a shadow of something I can no longer reach.
The beauty I once saw everywhere
seems to have vanished.
Dreams feel brittle;
hope feels like a foolish story I once believed.
Her absence is a quiet void,
and love, once a tender, living thing,
is now just a ghost
I can’t hold on to.
And so I go on,
not with the joy I once knew,
but with a quiet acceptance
that the song of my heart
will now play softly,
alone.
@okelododdychitchats
Holy Hypocrisy
Why did I stop going to church? One of the funniest reasons I’ve heard is, “My pastor was crippled and healing cripples. Like, why not heal yourself?” It’s a dark statement, but I get where they’re coming from. Let’s be honest, are these people God’s messengers or money makers in Poverty Pulpits ?
I believe in God, but I have a million questions. My friend and colleague, Evans Asudi challenges me every time we have a discussion about religion and the existence of God, he argues that the design of the universe, nature, and everything in it must have an origin. My question is, is that origin the God of the Christian Bible, Allah of the Muslim Quran, or the supernatural forces in Buddhist texts like the Tripitaka? I’m not saying these religions worship entirely different gods. They argue as if they do, but interestingly, they all seem to agree on the same devil. Crazy, right? Anyway, I believe in God and identify as Christian, but I rarely go to church. I have my reasons !
As a kid, I always questioned my existence, and while that hasn’t changed, I now find myself questioning the origins of religion. Who created it, and what was it really meant to achieve? History shows how religion has been used to create divisions, often for political gain, and it still happens today. Different religions hold varying beliefs, and even within Christianity, denominations clash. Paul even addressed this in Corinthians, questioning why Christians were divided when they were all baptized in Christ’s name. These divisions are often exploited for political purposes, given the strong influence religion has on society and politics.
I was raised in a strict Christian background where questioning the church or its leaders was off-limits. It was considered disrespectful and even thought to bring curses. Looking back, I laugh at how much I used to fear that. But, even as a kid, I could see pastors giving in to “earthly” temptations, sins they were never held accountable for. They seemed untouchable, immune to any form of criticism. Over time, this made me start questioning things more deeply, and now it’s part of why I find it difficult to step inside just any church today.
To make sense of where we are, let’s start with the history of Christianity. It began in the 1st century after Jesus’ death as a Judaic sect with some Hellenistic influences. The Catholic Church claims to be the original, with the first church said to be in Jerusalem. Over time, Christianity branched into several groups like the Church of the East, Oriental Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, and Restorationism.
In its early days, the traditional churches built schools, hospitals, and provided services that genuinely benefited the community. They did this without exploiting their congregants. But as time went on, evangelical churches started popping up what one of my great of all time writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calls “mushroom churches” in her book “Purple Hibiscus”. I’m not generalizing all evangelical churches, but many sprouted after the colonial period, often without any regulation, and some have become quite problematic.
These churches often target vulnerable people, especially our mothers. With this, sometimes, I tend to believe that the colonialists had a plan, schools for the children, prisons for the fathers, and churches for the mothers. Anyway, that’s just a detour, let’s get back on track…A lot of these churches manipulate their followers, brainwashing them into accepting whatever the pastor says without question while reasoning that questioning will lead to the unthinkable,absurd! When pastors claim that questioning them will lead to whatever, it’s really just a way to manipulate their followers. You don’t fail or fall by speaking up or seeking answers for God’s sake !
Times without number, I’ve also heard pastors glorify poverty, insisting that wealth distances you from God, they say that having money makes you less inclined to pray. These same pastors live in luxury, strikingly paradoxical ! Some even discourage their followers from seeking medical help, claiming that doing so demonstrates a lack of faith in God, despite the Bible stating, “faith without action is dead.” Are they referring to something who’s content they do not understand or did it change overnight ?
It’s ironic how these extreme churches often have the largest followings. And what really frustrates me is the constant fundraising, with no transparency on where the money goes. I’m tired of seeing congregants grow poorer while pastors grow wealthier. Churches should be shaping and speaking up for the community, but many stay silent when it doesn’t affect them…I am just sick and tired of this top tier deception, emotional control, psychological tactics, coercion, gas lighting, name it all! let me take a break! One day, we’ll go deeper into this, especially on how pastors are now called “Daddy” and their wives “Mummy.”
@okelododdychitchats
okelododdychitchats 