Burn the Phoenix

Breaking

The heart

Again

Too many times

Must be dead

But

To keep rising

Like a phoenix

From the shatters

Again

And again

With certainty

The mind says

It is dead

Never getting roused

Again

Too many places

Broken

Piecing together

Can’t

And then

Embers cloud the eyes

Not sure

The cloud grows thicker

Blinded

Can’t see

The phoenix towers

Blocking vision

See-sawing in the cloudiness

A good feeling

Giddiness

Floating

Flutter in the stomach

Clouds in the eyes

Senses in the clouds

Starry eyed

Fluttering hands

Holding hands

Dimpled smiles

Forgotten brokenness

Bliss

Ecstatic magic

Magical merriment

Then

This mist is fading

Clearing

Clouds getting sparse

Feet feeling springy and kissing the ground

Barely

But yes

The smooth swim in the clouds

Losing wings

Losing strokes

A mirage

The clouds fading

Hitting the ground

Grounded

Clear eyes

Smog fading

Phoenix shattered

Again

How

How many times

Shatters

Everywhere

Pieces of what?

The heart?

Again?

No!

Bleeding hands

Fingers meeting the broken pieces

Piecing together

Can’t

Don’t want

Let the bleeding go on

Watching it crimson on me

Meandering on the skin

The floor

Making patterns

They bring calmness

Dullness

It’s dark

The crimson gives light

Illusions of light

The phoenix is dead

No ashes

Burnt them

Never shall you rise

Penises!

Of boys

Men

Foreskins

Sharpened penises

Unsharpened penises

Ego trips of sharpened penis holders

Women

Complexes

Voices

Of sharpened penis holders

Nonchalance

Of unsharpened penis holders

Awareness

Choices

Differences

Loudmouths

Of sharpened penis holders

What?

Why?

And then?

Better?

Of sharpened penis holders

Loud

Haughtiness

Louder

Blown out chest

Yes

I am better than you

Superiority complexes

Unsharpened penis holders

Nonchalance

Differences

Don’t care

So?

Knowing

Foolishness

Not knowing

Of boys

Men

Penises

Oh! Penises!

Pain

You creep up and find abode in me

You come to remind me of my immortality?

My humanness?

To cause me anguish?

 Searing anguish

Giving up feels easy, easier than you, pain

Living with you is hard

Surrender is sweet temptation

You feel greater than me

I admire your illusions

Very daring and arrogant

You are temporal, though

Here today, perhaps tonight you may stay

But you can cut the crap about staying beyond tonight

Where do you go and get that kind of haughtiness?

Filling up my room?

I breathe you, touch you

See you everywhere, my step is you.

I could say I am in awe of your audacity

On the contrary

I pity your self-absorbed sense of position

Your reigning nonsense

You don’t belong anywhere

You are a thief, yes you steal

Nothing is yours

But

You have caused me to feel, I know

Brought out my rawness, thank you

Touched my vulnerability, very clever

Tempted me, yes I am human!

Taken my thoughts where they dread

Showed me what I am, very revealing mirror that…

My value, my strength

My profundity

Interesting, don’t you think

In that pit of torment

There is still clarity

Senses still stay afloat

My profundity reigns.

Cut the girl too!

It is that season again. Boys coming face to face with the knife. Previously this was a community’s affair and it was awash with all the ash smearing, ice-cold river immersion, music and chanting and feasting after the boy had crossed to the manhood side. Of course this is fading and is an individual family’s business in most homes. It has even become more removed from the family by the church taking over this process and many parents are choosing this option.

 Good counsel is imparted, that, I observed as I sat in one such class. Another notable observation is, it is not a boy affair only, the girl is a participant too. The girl, it is argued needs counsel as much as the boy as she hits teenage and experiences all the new goings-on in her body.

But there is a catch, and this one is beyond the church and the law. Once the girls are released to go back home, for some it is not over yet with the ‘counsel.’ Visits to an aunty or grandmother are quickly planned and the girl is set off. This visit is very deliberate and not just some regular one. It has been thought out and planned. The girl comes back home a ‘woman’ or so she is told. A very interesting revelation came to me during this session; girls who get circumcised do not make friends or hang out with uncircumcised girls. I almost laughed at this nonsense until it occurred to me how sad it is. What if they were friends before the nasty cut? Their friendship dies because one is minus some body part?

In the 21^st century, 13 year old girls have their clitoris slashed off and that is the very mild ones like in my community, the kikuyu. Other communities get more adventurous with the mutilation and leave the girl clean of all the flesh around her vagina. Some of these girls die due to blood loss, they get infections from use of unsterilized instruments, some experience painful sexual intercourse thereafter etc. The myriad life threatening consequences cannot be exhausted in this write-up.

Female circumcision or as it is commonly known female genital mutilation (FGM) is still alive and well and statistics may say that it has gone down but it is not coming to an end any time soon.

Female genital mutilation was made unlawful in Kenya in 1997 and an anti-FGM bill passed in October 2011. This is one of those tricky laws where a culprit is not easily apprehended. It is not as easy as the Police pouncing on changaa brewers. A girl is secretly taken to a relative’s home and the circumciser, an elderly woman goes to her. The girl is too young and gullible to understand that what is about to be done to her is unlawful and not beneficial to her in any way. She is the one who should cry out but she is gagged in every important way; she harbours no knowledge besides the lies she has been fed about becoming a woman and having to live a life of miserable singlehood; no man wanting to marry her if she does not become a woman. This is why this practice continues to thrive with abandon. Fresh girls are out and being readied to lose part of their reproductive parts.

Another among the many sick reasons female circumcision is practiced is to rein in sexual desire. Why should women experience sexual urges? Their sexual activities should be as a response to their man’s sexual urges only! Now this is the kind of hogwash that we need to save every girl from. Every girl needs to know that they are in charge of their bodies and how to react to every urge they experience, the consequences of their reactions and the joys of the feelings in their bodies. I shudder to imagine what a miserable life mine would be if some self-imposed haggard grandmother had sliced off my clitoris. Every woman’s sexuality need only be celebrated but not be put under attack.

For Nya

I am in pink today. Eunice is in pink too. Many of her friends as well. We have all gone pink today for a little girl called Nya. Today would have been her seventh birthday. She left us two years ago.

I never met Nya. I met her mother, Eunice a year after she had passed on. I went to her office for an interview for a story for one of the local magazines. The editor had briefed me on Eunice’s loss but it obviously had not hit home until I met her. Not that she wears a long face and carries a miserable air about her. On the contrary, she is one of the most alive people I have ever met. She said hello to me and I liked her instantly. Her smile is one of those that hold you and make you feel good about meeting her.

As we sat down in a small intimate meeting room, I remember Eunice excusing herself to get something. She walked back holding a pack of tissues and explained to me that the day had been especially hard on her; it was family day for her Company. This meant bringing kids along for a fun day.

I hardly wrote. I listened. She cried, I cried. Her not in anguish but for missing Nya. Me in complete and utter anguish for this woman who I had just met who went through hell, lost her little girl and her very special friends and still smiled amid her tears. Her life was still sunny side up. She had chosen to live and purposefully.  

Nyambura was the love of her life. Pink was her favourite colour which she settled on at two. At three she was a girl; she picked her jewellery and was so confident she asked for what she wanted. As she went to school, she carried a flower to the van everyday for her teacher. Nyambura was a lover of people, she easily made friends. She was very grown-up for her age and Eunice says perhaps it’s because her life was packaged into the five years she was on earth. She is glad she spent time, did things with Nya. She is greatful she developed traditions that they followed. If anything, she does not regret never being there.

I want to celebrate Nyambura today by honoring her mother. She was given an amazing mother. She was held in the arms of a great woman, looked into a beautiful face when she called out ‘mum.’ A woman who got a second chance at life and chose life and not depression. Eunice, I celebrate, we celebrate Nya today through you. You have taught me to live, to love, to forgive, to be kind. Nya was a lucky girl to have had you for a mother.

Happy birthday Nya.