It’s Monday. Another blog post is due. But your girl has a nasty cough, a congested chest, a ringing in my right year, a painful growing molar and a headache. Yeah yeah, it’s a standard cold(and some more.) I feel like a disgrace either way. Since when do Africans let a mere cold stop them from doing things? Where I’m from, colds aren’t even considered hospital worthy.

The long and short of this whining is that I didn’t get around to writing a blog post. I could blame it on mild menstrual cramps that took two days off my week but like I said, that would be whining and again, a disgrace to women. Quick question: does living with women that experience cramps rub off on you? My periods used to be seamless.

However, in the spirit of posting consistently, I’m going to try and do bits.

The downside to being a creative is that you never clock out. You have nights when you get into bed having juiced your creativity into a pulp. Just right when you’re drifting off, you think of a line that sounds decent to you. Of course there will be the devil in your head telling you to go to sleep, that that line is too good to forget. But when you’ve been burned a couple times, when you’ve sat in front of a black page, trying and failing to remember a line, you will get out your phone and type that line out.

That’s the other thing about writing, you eventually fret about a quiet mind. Which is an exacerbating factor because writing already requires that you already spend so much time alone, ruminating over your pain and trauma, finding ways to package it into a theme, or a word-count, and worst of all a livelihood. I always tell people that everyone should write, for carthasis. Which is why I never have an answer when people ask me why my writing is so sad and intense. How do I tell them it’s a package deal without scaring them off?

That being said,I have so many notes on my phone and my notebooks. Paragraphs, sentences, words that I’m not sure will ever amount to anything. I’ve started writing books that will take me a decade to finish, or I might not finish. I have poems that make me bang my head against the wall, because they are good but oh God what if they aren’t?

So in place of a blog post, you guys are getting one of those random notes. You actually should consider this an honour because this is like getting a piece of my unfiltered mind. Please bare with the lack of context, it’s how I shield myself from intrusion. I know that somewhat ironic considering the type of writing I do but, believe me, it’s working. I mean, is it fiction or non-fiction? Is it about me or someone else? You don’t know.

God I ramble. So five hundred words later, here goes.

Every time I think of you, I think of all the matatus I’ve been in, watching people text other people, avoiding my phone, foolishly hoping that by the time I get to it, you would have reached out. I think of all the times I spoke my mind, told my truth, and you decided it was too offensive. Like my humanity hurt you. I’m embarrassed for all the times, drowning in the screeching silence and anxiety, I apologised for things that weren’t my fault just so I could get you to reply, so I could get off the floor, so my heart would stop trying to crack my rib-cage. You weaponised your silence and pointed it squarely at my sanity. I’ll keep thinking about these matatus, until this traitorous ache in my abdomen no longer feels like I miss you.

Now, here is a structured blog post, to make up for my lack of structure. It’s been a while since I related to a white writer so this was refreshing and it may have struck a chord or two. Also, I think I’m subtly hinting that my birthday is coming up and I need to be made to feel like I matter. I realise that sounds pathetic but I promise I didn’t mean it like that. You’ll understand that reference when you read it.

Also, because I mentioned periods, I leave you with Dominique Christina”s Period Poem.

Enjoy:)