It’s in your eyes,
You don’t look at me with intensity,
But I feel myself melt when you smile,
Your lips call to mine when you speak,
I’m left staring, gesturing and in awe — your pantomime…

Yours is a pulchritude my reincarnations will remember,
A fire that’s blistering even as an ember,
Before your splendour, it’s impossible not to be tender,
The forever I wish I could spend with you, could never fit a mere agenda.

Sometimes I wonder if you see the effect you have on my entire being,
How I light up like a thousand suns from the sound of your voice,
When I am lost and unsure of my way, I hear your soul sing,
And even in that preceding darkness, I sense that liberation is still a choice.

Everyone wants you,
You’re so special that they will tear each other apart,
If only they knew,
that the one to win you over will say little, but show you their heart,
that this love shall curl your toes and shift your worldview,
that you will never imagine a more significant impact,
than the one I will have on you.

Come, take my hand,
I have a plan.

Yours in perpetuity,
Just Me.

I see you was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The pain I have borne,
is in the scars I have hardly ever shone,
The pieces of me that, faced with decisions, leave me torn,
The hesitation to make others feel bad, even when it’s sadly what’s best for me after all — 
all these things owe to the darkest periods of my evolution.

Being alive is something I realised cannot be bought,
So many times my body was subjected to battles that it valiantly fought.
When my mind would leave and my soul would shut itself in a box,
All that was left was a hollow of myself, desperate for help,
but much too surly to be held down through it all: I left many that tried with welts.
Now a part of me sometimes questions what’s right for me when others go left,
and fights to stay in situations that only benefit those that don’t hold me in the same high esteem I do them.

Upon closer inspection and after much reflection,
I realise I’m driven by both an ingrained passion for seeing smiles,
And an unhealthy aversion to facing frowns caused by actions mine,
But I am learning that, in time,
all that the symbolism of human emotions reveals, is what goes on in our minds,
Sometimes, those we believe are behind us only have invisible motives underlying,
and their visible tentatives at presence, emanate from a subconscious need to not appear to be lying,
After any real tests of their foundations you shall find,
they were never truly going to survive contact with the vicissitudes of human life.

Others will make declarations to give a sense of importance to their confessions,
A sort of backhanded affirmation to make you feel chosen,
Whereas the truth is that you only serve as a repository for their most grating problems,
But not, when faced with your own,
as a being worthy of their reciprocation.
The most twisted realisation of all in a most recent case,
has been how much disdain and aversion they have for meeting in a fair space,
Attempts to level the playing field and keep things even were met with violent retorts to save face;
So I now believe that all these attempts to apparently seek audience and parlay,
while wilfully ignoring terms inspired by their own ways,
were simply meant to “put me in my place” — gaslit, reminded that I’m easy to replace.
Familiar with the script, I choose to decline my role in the play.

Many nights alone, hungry and broken have taught me,
that I am who I am and not what others choose to call me,
The fires that have scarred the soles of my feet,
have now lit the coals of my inner locomotive towards peace,
And while many a winter gale may cause the hands that feed its engine to nearly freeze,
So shall they also force me to remain by the fire and keep it blazing.

Thus, I remain convinced that the disappointment of loss,
causes the reassessment of all,
and an eventual steadying of course,
All for the benefit of self in the face of those inclined to supersede at all costs.

In words my mother cited often:
“Always forward, never backward.”

Yours in perpetuity,
Just Me.

Marching on… was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I miss your smile,
Despite all I put you through the countless times I lost my mind,
I still remember that sweet, heartwarming sight,
Beautiful was your heart and, during those times,
black was my own, arguably unworthy of thine.

I’m in a space where appreciation fills the room,
Not just of where I am, but of my many trips to the loon,
of nights I spent rubbing sand into my throbbing wounds,
of the lengths I went to battling a grief I could not see through,
And through it all, you were right there, willing to hold my hand and bring me food,
You held my head to your chest and did your best to lighten the mood,
I was just too far gone to see how much it took out of you,
Then you disappeared without a trace not long afterwards… though once I saw you on a billboard looking cool,
and I now pray I get to bump into you, even in a queue!

Few will ever truly relate to the love it takes to be there when one’s mind breaks,
I have looked at those moments in the mirror and had to face the music of serious mistakes,
But I remain convinced that nothing is unforgivable if, from our missteps, we learn what’s at stake,
The fact remains that the consequences may be irrevocable, and difficult to take.
I hope that wherever you are, you know that I will never forget your soul’s face,
And I hope our good Lord keeps you in His infinite grace.

Until we meet again,
I shall hold on to the memories, cherish them,
And while there was also so much darkness,
I’ll learn all that there is to learn from the time we spent,
All I say to you across the ether of your absence:
Congratulations on finally becoming an advocate!
Thank you so much for being there, more than the words can ever express.

Keep well, Merab,
know you will forever be a dear, unforgettable friend.

Yours in perpetuity,
Just Me

Wherever you are… was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of the hardest things to do in this life,
is deconflate others’ decisions from our value,
Somehow, in moments of strife,
We find a way to merge their actions with assumptions like,
“This is what I mean to you…”,
Only to start peeling away our selves with a paring knife,
completely oblivious to the pricelessness of staying true.

Loss has a way of upheaving existences,
You feel so much pain that it seems to want to burst out of you with such insistence,
I’m sure there is little any of us is meant for more than peace and sweetness,
But like any journey to the healing of these treasured human sentiments,
Some pain is ineluctably part of the prescribed treatment.

There won’t ever be a next time,
You can easily begin to reimagine the meaning of that smile,
The fact that someone is gone to you, yet alive,
Is a paradox that can warp the mind.

What’s worse is that, sometimes,
the losses of the departed and the living coincide.

With the living, better now, when all is out of sync and you feel downcast,
than when you are truly placing yourself at the mercy of their impact.
Being vulnerable is always a double-edged sword, remember that:
Either you’ll find a match, a real catch,
A wall, your polar opposite, onto which you cannot hope to latch,
Or a sponge — taking all you give,
and giving only what you squeeze in return.

I am grateful for what I did not foresee,
For through it I discovered more of me,
And in doing so, I became the self I once wished for frequently — 
Open, hopelessly poetic and a little less of a cynic,
In a sense, the tugging at my heartstrings now eased,
I can see that it was all leading up to this,
And, like an arrow now released,
I scream through the air towards my own infinity.

Silence is not a curse,
Solitude is not something for which we can rehearse,
But both of them yield a shift that allows us to grow up,
And each reveals the unlit corners of our all-too-human hearts.

As I look into one of those sconces now,
I realise where we are is probably where we were always bound,
Lighting its candle now, I find that what you cast in doubt,
allowed me to finally see into the cloud you always carried around — 
only to discover that, in it, there was no silver lining to be found.

The only way for the consuming shroud to disappear, is for all its rain to come down.
I hope, someday, you’ll let it all wash your crown.

Mine own in perpetuity,
Just Me.

Shades of Grey was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Love is something you apparently shy away from,
Each time you can, you remind me that your giving it is exceptional,
As I see it though, anyone that incessantly vaunts such basic interaction,
Values, above all, what their expression gives as an impression,
Evidently trying to make you a mirror for their plastic reflection.

My firm belief is that if you love someone, you show it,
Excessive insistence later insiduously implying they “owe you” for it suggests a self-obsession that’s toxic.

Before I find myself sinking deeper into this morass,
Enlarging the distance you unperturbedly create will be best for my bleeding heart.

I have few scruples left to consider,
Now that you seem to be slipping away, my vision is only getting clearer,
By taking the time to realise what’s said by your absence,
I can see what’s truly meant by your fleeting presence,
And as I am no one’s heart-sitter,
I’d rather you remain where you chose to be, in a corner where you‘re your own star.

It’s time I finally and, for myself, chose better.

(No longer to be, it would seem) Yours in perpetuity,

Just Me.

Taking my leave was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The heart wants what the heart wants,
Sometimes to the point that it destroys all,
When you’re continually at someone’s beck and call,
at the expense of reason,
When you realise that you are compromising too much on what,
you truly value and uphold,
It’s time to stop and re-evaluate the true price of it all.

We are inherently selfish,
In a twisted way, we lose ourselves in others because we decide to give them the keys,
to all that defines our being,
hoping desperately to be seen.
But in our desperation, we end up blind to the moments when they are mean,
We trivialise and justify cold deeds,
We overlook moments of our vulnerability that were shrugged aside unfeelingly,
And probably most detrimentally,
We hang on to every drop of spontaneous affection like it could last an eternity.

That said, there comes a time when even the folly of blind selfishness,
must be put subjected, in our minds, to simple tests,
Do you show me you love me when it suits you best?
Are you there unconditionally, or with a list of conditions that must be met?
Do you believe in what we are building and its essence?
Or are you simply checking a box and calling us “friends”?

I, for one, have endured enough in this fleeting life to realise,
that it is too short to be expended on telling yourself lies,
It’s certainly not long enough to invest disproportionately in ties that bind,
Only to have their meaning challenged repeatedly by other’s caprice even at the best of times.
While we may want all that is beautiful for those we love, sometimes,
we just have to take a good look at where they put us, with open eyes;
and finally, for the sake of sanity, sanctuary and sincerity, make up our mind.

To unmoor is but to begin a new journey,
Fraught as it may be with memory,
It shall also be laden with discovery,
And more crucially,
in your own depths shall you truly find peace.

So, escape below deck when the storms hit,
but make a point to later face the sun in all its magic.
Sit with your thoughts under the new moon and seek,
the light in the uncharted depth of your internal dynamics.

For only by doing so shall you really evolve, trust and believe,
the invaluable sense that you are (and of what you are) worthy.

Fear not, Nemo, only the lost can be found in our story.

Yours in perpetuity,
Just Me.

Unmoor and explore was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are moments when I feel terribly lonely,
It comes on like a wave, powerful and overwhelming,
You seem fine on the outside, but you’re simply not sleeping,
Up late scrolling through Instagram or passively following a series…

Lately I’ve been comparing my life a lot,
I’m uncertain with what,
Because of all the times I’ve struggled, this seems the least of the lot,
Yet it seems to force me to confront the nature of the people I’ve got.
To confront the way it seems like I can make a tonne of effort,
Only to be met with a feather of a retort…

I’m told I just need to be patient,
Someone shall step onto my scene with the right precepts,
At the moment though, I wonder why I seem drawn to people that just trivialise,
then make excuses for them infinitely as if that would change their mind,
yet I’m the one for whom they are unwilling to compromise.

It’s a terrible habit, I realise,
One that has led me to reject common sense countless times,
But finally, I’m seeing what’s happening for what it is; ABOUT TIME!
And slowly understanding that I must no longer accept being drip-fed on a dime.

It can be uniquely isolating to feel deeply,
Those that claim they don’t or cannot sometimes seem lucky,
The burden of apparently perceiving sentiments deeper than them makes some interactions feel like a mockery,
You’re always second-guessing your expression and trying to limit its degree,
But the more I drift into this space of solitude, the more I accept the importance of being unapologetically me,
The more I wake up from the folly of believing things will usually be mutual and pristine,
What is “usual” really, when humans are unrivalled in their ability to break away from each other’s definitions of routine?

Of course, I should have learned all this by now, but loss can truly muddy,
And therein lies another dynamic to all that I’ve been battling,
No one can ever love you quite like your mother or father would,
And it’s not that you expect them to,
But losing both puts you in a space of needing reassurance and support like you never knew,
It unveils the twisted nature of what you believed to be family; sad, ugly, but true,
And after the dust settles, you may have conflated physical presence for genuine intention, but woe unto you,
People simply do what they feel compelled to, and even that has limits that you will often misconstrue.
In the end, it’ll be just you, yourself and you,
Facing a world full of people that are either insensitive to or unattuned to…the way death can redefine your being in one fell swoop.

And that… that can shatter your soul and drain away all that is beautiful,
Or it can make you double down seeking love from those unwilling to give it in full,
Because when you lose those that loved you even at your darkest, it dawns on you soon,
That no one is looking at you.

Yours in perpetuity,
Just Me

No one is looking at you was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

To return to oneself is to focus on understanding no one else.

To be understood is overrated.

For how long shall a single man continue to be told his dates are outdated?
To be taken back in only to be frustrated,
before witnesses whose opinions remain unchanged,
is evidence that new witnesses might finally salvage whatever little is left undamaged.

To love is to be pained by burdens,
or some assume so wholehearted,
But I opine that to be loved by another involves pain, yes,
but not an inexplicable inability to use one’s head,
in the pursuit of reason and compromise in seeking a point of mutual agreement.

I can finally see my past clearly,
Sure, I’ve been headstrong and foolish, I’ve smoked heroine,
I’m proud to have been reduced to feeling like a snotty, little shit while unable to sleep on my left side for 7 months with bruised ribs,
I am proud — though many seem perturbed by it — to have walked through the fire of hell and arrived back to be cooled off by familial spit.

They can hate my newfound, soul-deep drip,
They can say I philosophise because they believe I smoke trees,
But I’ve discovered it’s ancestral and cannot apologise for things people can only say behind the scenes,

Sssssssssssss…

Because before me lie all my dreams and for right now, I’m just trying to ignore that so I can be.

So go ahead, believe as they will,
That I’m nothing but a headstrong mũgũrũki,
It’s not the first time someone ignored my beauty in favour of chauvinistic definitions of masculinity,
In case you forget, I went against that trend,
And I’m still not breaking the internet.

I have survived more than they’ll see in entire lifetimes,
These people with conviction that remain sucking on teats of invisible suction tubes tied to their own derrieres by those keen to be believed.
I have only my heart on my sleeve and truly believe,
that if I died of a heart attack from the implosion suddenly caused by their fuckry,
this should be my eulogy.

Burn my ashes, dear world, and fucking celebrate that at each point I saw the edge and paraglided off the cliff,
Bring those ashes and spread them around my grandfather John Mbora wa Njai’s grave, that I may rejoin him,
Our home is here in the little, Chrome- and keg-inundated hamlet of Gatitu, Nyeri County,
And I’m sure anyone that objects to this will learn that my clan (Ambura) will reclaim this carbon, paltry representation of infinity,
when the rain they send for me comes dripping merrily to my rescue from a distorted and broken reality.

To be alive in this age, I have learned to turn the page perpetually,
And am unafraid to use primary school fascination with the dictionary,
to defend my right to be Evans Campbell, Mbora Muthee, Snave Llebpmac and/or Just Me,
They gave me till the count of three,

So I told them to count 1 and see me in the trees,
By 2, I realised I had tactically hit them at the knees,
By 3,
There was nothing left but my ashes, fuck a phoenix!

People pick and choose,
They suggest and muse,
But what matters here is what you *do*,
No one gives a fuck what you think, they’ll remind you until you feel abused,
Then you’ll begin to get amused,
You’ll finally turn it around and the world will be on Sasa|Viu,
When you get to that stage, don’t expect to be confused,
for anything less than a buffoon,
Simply for expressing facts that differ with their opinions of you.

I have said often here, but it’s worth repeating,
That I shall never justify my existence and way of being to anyone again,
As I strolled the streets of Malindi barefoot, hunger-stricken and beaten,
For *3* (is this number following me? 👀) weeks and expecting *indefinitely*,
No one reading this was with me.

When I got stranded in Zanzibar/TZ for *13* days, expecting *finality* to my suffering upon my return to a soulfully soulless Nairobi,
No one reading this experienced the weights placed on my being,
So, excuse me, WTF ARE YOU SAYING ABOUT EMPATHY?

Let’s take a second to establish that the dynamics that are toxic,
No longer leave me coughing and choking,
I simply step to the side like I’m hopping,
Then get my palms sharpened for some fatal bullshit chopping,
I am prepared to use nothing more than my mind to deconstruct these glass houses atop water bed foundations, complete with rosy flooring,
I need not come to blows over your deficiency in capacity to be told and tell in equal measure and with equanimity,

For my mind and yours, all I want is ☮️

The time has come to show that there are degrees in these streets,
And in the hot African sun of Malindi streets I have walked on tarmac with my bare feet,
31 degrees and so mentally gone because of my paternal situation that caring ceased,
I have ceded that much power just so I could be rehabilitated and realise that all my life I tried so hard for others besides me,
And the time has come for the Emperors to wave aside the king, respectfully,
As the Mother Empress intended for things to be when she sterilised the emotions of her history,

I’m leaving the house she half-built,
Because I tried to hang off its banister with my brother’s belt and, despite failing miserably,
Have never heard anyone, in years over *3*, try to establish honestly what could have driven me to such an extreme.

But, these were things that only caused slight, injury,
And I had to raise my head to see that they are not for me,
I'm strolling by a river I just swam in,
And dancing when the rain my ancestors sent over finally arrives in the moment of my need.

I’m happening,
I’m happy,
I’m Just Me,
Mbora Muthee
EVANS CAMPBELL ilikuja tu na mkatoliki na mkoloni,
Samahani 🙏🏾✌🏾

Muse: Tetu Shani — AfricaSun | Jacob Banks feat. Avelino — Monster

Tetu Shani — AfricaSun | Jacob Banks feat. Avelino — Monster was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You'll remember me, not for what I said, but for what it meant,
You'll remember not my words, but their extent,
The length and breadth of my willingness to still love an oppressor from a distance shall never relent,
But, as a valiant survivor of the depth of your emotional incompetence,
I'll leave your realignment to the fates,
Apologising in advance if it involves any torment.

In the life I have lived,
Hell and heaven have been merged and both offer only passing reprieve,
Yet somehow, I emerged able to trust.
To see that misconstrued for subservience and ignorance has made me laugh,
To hear the belated sniffles and feeble attempt at finding a comeback,
Was probably the most ridiculous episode of Unchecked Privilege, featuring a truly class act...
What’s veritably sad,
Is that words and fancy elevators, not actions, were what you invariably chose to escape your lack.

In hindsight, I have no doubt that the haze you daze yourself with,
Is the same one that instigated the craze that is the way you behave.
An exceptional ability to selectively and arbitrarily disregard the 'e' in humane,
While also finding bafflingly frail excuses for your blindness to the inherent me in them,
Seems to be your only claim to fame.

I trust that life shall show you a thing or two before you find yourself in the inane,
But rest assured that the choice to find the bit of yourself in others you treat as mundane,
Will come not by land, sea or plane,
But by the choice to put chest to blade,
And cut through the morass of your self-imposed aloofness to the quick that is your pain.

M(in)e to perpetuity,
Just Me.

Muse: Sauti Sol — Sofia

Sauti Sol — Sofia was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In the floating spaces between bubbles, hear the sound of an inexorable force for balance through a willing acceptance of inevitable change.

‘In the susurration of the indifferent night breeze,
While you lay in bed asleep,
I stare out at the space before us and think,
I reminisce upon the moments we just shared,
About the sections I’ll enjoy re-narrating in which you felt scared,
The parts of our connection that you say overwhelm your need to control how much pleasure you bear…

If you close your eyes and dream of me,
Then maybe it is true that you see and feel as you describe perpetually,
But perchance it is also a lie and you are skilled at mendacity,
How am I to know if I never let your actions speak for thee?
How am I to grow if I pin my entire life to thee?

Of course, for the sake of clarity,
All I want is your prosperity,
It would be lovely to say we share a posterity,
But unfortunately neither of us had settling down in our plans recently,
Or at least I didn’t,
So is it okay for us to just be friends, with no further definitive terminology?
Or is this a relationship of urgency driven by an obsession with micromanaging technology?

I don’t mind never seeing you again,
But I do mind knowing you think I wanted an end,
The way things went is hardly how I intended,
But it seems that despite my foresight, I could do nothing to really prevent,
this heart-wrenching crash of an association I could hardly portend.
I guess that’s life then…

I love that you can see me for who I am,
But hate that you still peg me for the person you wish I was,
I love that you see how much you mean to me,
But hate that I am reduced to the mean result of you+me/you,
And that in that reductionist equation, I am less < than enough to just be.

I will always love you, not sure if you will me,
I will not always want to be with you physically,
but why should that matter so when we are magic beings in corporeal chains of conformity,
I guess it matters if you don’t believe,
I guess it matters if this not the way, things, you see,
But if so, then let us be free,
Not of each other, but for each other, indefinitely,
Take all the time you need to dream,
And make sure you steal that last kiss before I leave,
You never know when I’ll join you on the other side of that slumber so deep.’

— Just Me

Producers: Martin Goodwin, Infinity
Release: Rising Sun EP
Label: Alexandar

Martin Goodwin x Infinity — Discovery [Alexandar] was originally published in How to Dream Awake on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.