Boniface Kariuki, the man who was shot in the head by a cop in Nairobi’s CBD is in critical condition at Kenyatta National Hospital. We’re all hoping he pulls through, but even within that, the knowledge that his life has been altered irrevocably. I don’t know that anything qualifies as justice in a situation like this. The best we can do, is the upending of … Continue reading Refuse despair, because my guys, hope is a discipline.
I fell off a moving bicycle last week. I hurt myself quite badly. I use “quite badly” here only as a figure of speech and not as an assessment of my injuries. In truth, I haven’t thought it necessary to develop a concrete opinion about the severity of my injuries. In the seconds after I fell down, I worried that I had hurt my head … Continue reading I think I’m bad at being alive.
When I read this at the beginning of last year I thought, that’s a tad dramatic, no? Like sure, It would suck if I couldn’t write but I’d adapt. I’d find some other creative outlet, I’d find a different way to live a fulfilled life. I certainly wouldn’t die. So my life was like, “bet?” and I didn’t write for about seven months after and yes, I didn’t die but I didn’t want to be alive either. Continue reading I’m struggling with my writing; I’m struggling with life.
I’m having a hard day. I realise it’s kind of dramatic to say that forty two minutes after I woke up but I am. So maybe the more accurate thing to say is the hardness of the last few days have spilled into today, congealing while I slept. There’s a part of me that is hesitant to say that because maybe if I declare today … Continue reading I’m having a hard day.
Mariame Kaba says that hope is a discipline. That it isn’t necessarily about feeling optimistic but it’s about the commitment to do whatever you can on any given day in service of a better future. So hope is like love in that way: we often think of it as a feeling but it’s more of a choice, a commitment you make every single day. Continue reading Taking stock 2022.
I had a world stopping moment yesterday. It didn’t hit me at the time because I thought of it as a bump at worst but it’s fifteen hours later and I’m feeling stranded—like I’ve arrived to the part of myself that’s always known there’s no way out. You know how they say that if you put a frog in hot water it will jump out … Continue reading Maybe this too, is a thing of beauty.
The day before I started radiation and chemotherapy, we sat on my aunt’s dining room table trying to figure out how to make the coming seven weeks as bearable as possible. It was a warm day towards the end of April and I mostly sat in silence, feeling like I couldn’t possibly contribute anything meaningful to the conversation. I think part of it was that … Continue reading I need you guys’ help.
But I also know that I’m trying. That in the last few years, when I’ve felt angry, I haven’t rushed to bury it. That I’ve sat with it. That I’ve let it teach me, that I’ve let it make me furious enough to choose myself. And maybe I’ll always be the kind of person that quietly rages at big unflinching things—at gods who don’t see me and men who aren’t scared of me. But maybe the point the point is to stop raging at myself. Continue reading A meditation on anger.
Fiction Ⅰ. Your love is a quiet, arrogant thing in the pit of your abdomen when you come to me. I’m standing at the entrance of my building unsure as to what my only meal of the day will be. I could go right and get a coffee cake, or left and get chips. You’re so stealthy, I only notice when you’re right in front … Continue reading Your Love is a Transient Dream
Because I think apocalypses, more than anything, are personal. I survived my apocalypse. I’ve held my heart in my hand and watched the sun rise and for so many mornings, the universe’s utter indifference to my pain hurt so much, I thought it would kill me. Because why would the sun continue to rise when my world was ending? But beauty? That shit is relentless. And my heartbeat? It’s the most beautiful thing I know. Continue reading My little life.
Clarie's Ramblings 