Lovely Amaris

Lovely Amaris,

One evening this lazy month of February, in the streets of Nairobi my stomach was running swiftly in bubbling sounds that harassed my humble being. I made my way to the occasional restaurant that annoys everyone with its loud bell. Highlands is a cheap end restaurant in the heart of the CBD. Nairobi is known for hanged up restaurants where tired civil servants, job seekers and students quench their hunger while chatting away the remainder of the day. Orange lights burn the concrete jungle and in a hazy ball of smoke, matatus belch some weird tunes as people rush in all directions; some cursing at a jab on the shoulder, others donning smart peach clothes and rushing to different places. It was another busy day that led me to meet you. I have thanked the gods of chance a lot but let’s face it.

It is not my intention to cause a stir in my explanation of this feeling that has me in push and pull. In my inmost fire I recall that Friday night when I had given up on the day after a huge disappointment with my school. You see campus is tough and when you spend the whole day jumping from one office to another, it’s exhausting and demeaning. It’s one of the reasons I went to drown my sorrow with tea. It was by mere coincidence that your girlfriend who is also a mutual friend was with me in the said day. Inspite of myself I went out to the very last bit and actually pushed my reluctance to meet new people after she insisted that I see you.

It began when I met you, an intense pleasure that made me feel rather cool (you should know of my coolness by now). Amaris, it felt good I swear the way you flung open inside my arms as if we’d been waiting for that special moment all our life. We’d been strangers in the standard vocabulary of this world but I was immediately drawn to you. You signaled a new story and I will tell of this feeling that has me blessing the gods of tea for letting me hang around town a little longer. I actually have plans that when life opens up to me, I’ll build a tea factory just for the pleasure of remembering the moments before I met you. But the truth it is just a way to make money.

My dear, I was struck by a literal flash of power; and it came in violent butterflies of need, not nights of expensive wine; rather a force that turned into a fountain of hope and in the strength of the foundations of the soil that holds the city under the sun. It felt as a war that had been won without ice cream or fat chips that look like the fingers of the waiters who serve them. At least it wasn’t for the time being. Everything turned into emotional purity, with our feet suddenly acquiring unjaded sandals. I was a good writer before I met you and quite orderly in my disorderly life having perfected the art of being uncliché. Funny how I am rushing to Google love poems in an attempt to find any that matches up to what I feel. It comes as a realization that I am scared of all these and my shirt has to endure the rubbing of my sweaty palms due to the anxiety of meeting you again.

That’s erotically intense.

You have gentle eyes, Amaris; feathery glances that fall on my chest in the most abominable of circumstances. It sounds trivial I know but I am not embarrassed to write that my ancestors in the lineage of legends would be ashamed of me for loosing my cool to a girl (I am not bragging, my dad told me so). Maybe this letter should begin here with my confession of how I stay up to enjoy the few moments we can share together. But everything is programmed in a certain way that makes me wonder if it’s all a lie, what if I loved you the moment I saw and held you in my arms? What if the technological advancement has a way to transport feelings to where I am and maybe just the light of the moon spells out your name? What if I honestly want to dance with you on a dance floor, on a bed or on the span of life? Instead we have to summon our past and set things clear by talking it out and pretending that time has a way to grow love? Look, I do not deny of the possibility of that simple fact but you have to understand that that is waiting and I can’t honestly wait any longer. I can’t endure the thought and torture of being away from you. I am incapable of fooling myself anymore.

There are numerous suburbs in this city and circumstance has been on my feet like chains that make me unable to see you as much as I should. How I get angry and frustrated that I sometimes can’t honestly do anything but fume because I still live as a pauper. Money unfortunately doesn’t love company (Haha, I am not laughing). You are pretty, dappled in black cotton coats, smallish eyes; lips that make me over-butter my bread. But the truth is sometimes bread is hard to get in this city that even a simple maandazi reminds me of your lips and I wonder how you kiss. In a world of deep expression and intense competition, I’d be annoyed to find that a certain guy has a better explanation of what your lips do to their appetite. Your pose appears as strong as Tom Mboya’s statue and despite that entire crowd that winks at him, he urges them on and he doesn’t feel shy but unlike him, I stand silently and call out your name in nights I can’t find you, please don’t let me imitate our shujaa and stand in a crowd and call out to you. Baby it’s February, don’t you just hate valentine?

Relax, that isn’t the core of my first writing to you. I feel that I should appreciate the unseen future we are yet to encounter and did you notice I just called you baby? The world is weaning away fast and honestly you make me gentle. I want to swear that even if the world dies now, I’ll breathe a second longer to ensure we go away together but I am really sliding back to being cliché so I reckon that you understand that all I am saying is that I want you in an unimaginable way. I want you on the concrete jungle, in the terminology of the word “poet” or “princess” but I’d be biting too much at the moment. I don’t care still of what the world perceives me to be. I want you Amaris, in socks jingling among the million steps that wanders across this city that when I fall down I will notice the socks walking in feet and I’ll crawl to you. I am sorry that I speak sometimes words that you may not understand but the feeling inside me has me all confused and if this is what love is, then I don’t want to focus. After all focusing is too mainstream and we hate how normal things are boring.

Nyako, it’s not my wish to excite you beyond any measure and please don’t giggle but you can blush. I wish I knew the difference between them anyway. I wonder how religious you are because I think we found a new religion and it would be blasphemous for us to insist that ours is the correct religion (hahaha, I am joking). Seriously though I am unable to be without you. You are so deliciously beautiful. Nyako Amaris, I have one confession that has taken me this whole writing to amass the courage to tell you.

I love you. You make me whole.

             Yours, 
      The Prophet of the moon.