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 Dec 2020 nojak
heathen
The walls are breathing
Fervently
I am breathing
Shallow and labored
This house
which holds up a home
has fewer stressors on its joints
than I do
 Dec 2020 nojak
heathen
Journal
 Dec 2020 nojak
heathen
00:54; we are eating silently in the same room, but not with each other. We both have had hard days and it seems like our company won't do anything to make it better. He touched me. It wasn't the way I needed to be touched today.

10:24; I'm awake now and even my own company won't do anything to make it better. The day is so warm that it makes me nauseous, but I stay in the sun anyway. I don't read the news today.

14:30; this book store is having an outdoor sale and I spend $4 to impress the cute sales clerk on my obscure picks.

15:04; I'm home and I eat 2 and 1/2 carrots. My day-to-day grind keeps me busy but does it do anything for me? Everything I touch I reduce to being a waste of time meant for something better. I sound pessimistic but I truly don't believe that I am.

17:12; I'm out and he's out with me and we're doing a project together. Our minds create great things when they touch but that doesn't happen as often as I want to. I'm hungry and I'm reminded that I am responsible for feeding myself.
 Dec 2020 nojak
heathen
I remember a time I was riding the bus a few years ago. Now, I know I have no rights or ownership over public transportation - and honestly, thank God. I am too neurotic a person to be in charge of something that is actively on fire every other month or so. It's still better than driving in the city, so I can only be so critical. But still, I'm critical.

It was early evening, and the commuter stress was just about to reach its boiling point. The mingling of body heat with mouth breathing combined with the hermetically sealed windows could create its own ecosystem in these conditions, but this was not the tropical getaway that any of us had envisioned. Alone on a full bus, it's easy enough for me to pretend to be reading or checking emails while scoping and scouting for a spectacle of human disaster, of whose life is probably far more interesting than mine. This particular bus was ripe for people-watching. People shuffled uncomfortably away from the person on their left into the person on their right and some sloppy white-collared ******* was coughing INTO THE AIR and it was as if I could feel the spores of his stale cigarettes and his $40 lunch gently wafting and twirling and landing right on my lips and face; a romantic kiss from a stranger.

I watched a woman twisting her elbow absentmindedly. It was a dreary day and she was looking and leaning toward the window, subconsciously trying to absorb as much sun as possible. There was a mother and child sitting next to me. The child was crying -  disturbed by the heat, disturbed by everything. The already exhausted, overworked mother had had enough of everything the day had thrown at her and smacked her wailing babe so she could have just a moment of control and feel as if she could make her world momentarily slow down and bend to her command. The child retreated inwardly, save for a few defiant sniffles. A dense silence set in. I remember this, and wonder which of the two I am more like? I think I know, but I don't want to say it.
I have shifted the tide, so to speak--
not held captive to the flaws of men
or the romanticism of it--
I no longer have the inclination
to adore atrocity or
to revel in insanity,
But,
in sanity,
I am numb to these vibrations,
numb to the feeling of happy or sad,
because coping is another word
for "robot"-- I'm the analyst now,
I'm in love with logic,
and so life goes on,
without a further nod from me.
calm after the storm
Have you ever been to Nairobi?
What did you see there?
Buildings, people and vehicles?
Uhmmm! Let me share with you my case
Hence I was there yesterday,
And I saw wonders of life;
Jubilant politicians clashing for tyranny,
At the Nairobi parliament,
Making anti-human laws,
Under faked canopy of de-terrorization,
With no tincture of surrender to open truth,
That; in juvenile states like Kenya,
Corruption is a minefield of terrorism,
Corrupt management of state organs;
The policemen and state spies,
Hired on full back-up of corruption,
Gives leeway to thriving of terrorism,
As a security agent hired nepotistic-ally,
Will never fight terrorism with a knack,
Leave police work to policemen with passion,
Not to your kinsmen and loyalists in politics,


I saw jubilant politicians high on nerves,
Excited like a swine on ****** heat,
Or they were possessed by the evil spirit,
Or crushed by the African cult of dictatorship,
Where humanity derives pleasure from political pains,
Scornfully viewing humane governance,
As dictatorship will fortunately give a bloom,
Of swift doors and windows of corruption,
Primitive accumulation of filthy wealth,
And apotheosification of the worthless self,
Into a lull of blind self-made god-ship

I saw a jubilant politician going pugnacious,
Forcefully restoring dark days of Toroitich arap Moi,
Making a law which a monkey cannot make,
Hitting a fellow politicians,
With all might and knack of a devil,
Shredding into laces the trouser of a colleague,
Exposing red lingerie of the fellow colleague,
Partially exposing the tools of child making,
Only to the positive chagrin of us all,
On discovery of the circumcised *****,

I saw jubilant dictator-maniac politicians,
Passing a law of shooting to death,
Him the police feels may be a terrorist,
Or detain at pleasure, without trial
Him that looks ugly like a terrorist,
A suspect is a snake to be crushed the head on sight,
But not all snakes are poisonous Mr. Politico-Jubilant,
Some are ornamental and others poisonously harmless,
Even snakes need fair trial,
Just like suspect of genocide,
Before the international criminal court,
Before a blow of hammer crushes their heads,
Let me ask you my dear reader,
A foolish question as usual;
What are snakes to the jubilant politics of Nairobi?
A political non loyalist who perhaps can chide,
The powers that be from their gusto of power,

I saw jubilant politicians in full gear of idiosyncrancies,
Passing the law to gag friends of the poor,
The NGO’s; the poor man’s uni-source of hope,
They have been relieving the poor man of Kenya,
From horrendous traditions of   epidemics,
In Turkana, Budalangi and marginalized Mandera,
Helping men and women of these areas to be free,
From tyranny of perennially missing basic needs,
This freedom is now thwarted,
Lest it gives these poor men right of speech,
Thwarted artfully in the **** of NGO’S,
Through false label of the time,
That they play *** with terrorist groups,
What a big a lie?

By
Alexander Khamala  Opicho,
Eldoret,Kenya
 Oct 2014 nojak
r
lonely moths -
black and white
and in-betweens

navigating
by the same light

  spiraling -
adapting
- changing

traits
moth-ers know

no need to race
- we are one.

r ~ 10/28/14

http://anthro.palomar.edu/vary/vary_2.htm
\¥/\
  |   £epidoptera
/ \
 Oct 2014 nojak
k o s m i k
maybe that's what you need to do in life --
you have to look
a little deeper,
a little closer,
a little longer.
nothing is a total beauty, i know.
but there will always be
something beautiful,
something radiant.
it's the discreet things
that make things a little more thrilling.
if we keep quiet every once in a while,
nature will intensify for us.
the world isn't cruel;
we just don't see
the delicate parts of it anymore.

the world is kind.
life is kind.

it's just us who are not.
 Oct 2014 nojak
k o s m i k
she loved the moon more than the sun;
her sorrows always turned
into something brighter as Luna listened.

she loved the rainy days more than the bright ones;
she didn't have to pour out raindrops
because the sky understood.

she loved the lonesomeness better than the crowd;
she felt more found in the silence
than being with the wrong people.

she loved the broken more than the whole;
the honest indiscretions of the impaired
showed her that you can fall in love with flaws.

she loved everything else more than herself;
she lives in the subtle silence.
but despite the melancholy,
she's learned a lot, and that is love too.
it's raining, so i ... i feel nice.
but this poem describes otherwise.
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