Drowning

This week I was going to tell you about a girl. A young girl -about seven years- I met when I took my friends swimming. I was going to tell you the conversation we had, how she intrigued me. How confident and loquacious I thought she was because at her age, I was a shy timid little bitch. I wanted to tell you how different we are; the millennials and these 21st-century kids, that the gap is larger than you thought.

I also wanted to rant my heart out about not knowing how to swim and how now it’s biting me in the ass. How I claim to go swimming yet I only wade like an ill duck on the shallow ends. I wanted to tell you how I’m usually the guy that watches over their friends’ phones as they swim. I was to tell you that I blame my parents for not taking me out swimming but I figured I’m too old for that, blaming parents. And since you’re all indulging readers, I’m sure you could’ve asked why I’m not learning it now. And I would’ve told you why. First, I can’t pay 1000 bob per hour to be taught to swim. On top of not having it, I think it’s unnecessary, at least for now. There are better things you could do with it, you know, like order a round at the local or give the Sportpesa CEO after “bet moja ikuwaste.”Secondly, I have my experience with water. I almost drowned once learning to do it. I even saw the light, and what looked like gates. So I’m especially skeptic of water, I think it’s out to get me. Lastly, don’t even think of saying a friend could teach me. How do you think I ended up seeing those gates in the first place? Friends will play with your life. They will throw in the water as a joke. And you’re supposed to laugh about it later after you’ve chocked on a few gulps of that chlorine-pee solution ( I heard people pee in pools). There has to be a special place in hell for those ones.

I was to tell you all that in say, 900 words, but I got a text. A text from Myra, you know her, no? The poet around here? She had something good. Something I loved. And being the generous chap I’ve been told I am (hehe), I thought I’d share it here. Enjoy.

***

I tell myself to trust in the timing

To take a chance

To live in the moment

To just, fall

Yet you elude me each time

And each time the fire is twice as hot.

 

As I journey this lonely road

And run past control

In the company of native tension,

I can feel my heart still

As a cloud of peaceful wrath gathers

Pain hides, behind the cold, blossoming ever so fervently.

 

I exhort myself not to cling to a breaking rope

But the eternal flame in my eyes will not bow

Like a game of Russian Roulette

I begin another attempt,guns blazing

Like the dawn of a new age

This time,this time I’ll make it.

 

Beyond the raindrops that are my now drying tears

I feel an angry wind rising from within

I will not be a withered rose

No longer will I nurse the paralysis of crushed dreams

Even in spite of having to face the beaten stare of yesterday’s false hopes

Today,I will try again.

 

It is more a test of faith

For I tasted failure and it made me painfully shy of risks

Still the scars, they do fade

Some may discard it as a phase of Insanity,

Like Einstein said

 

My hope thrives however in too violent a form

It’d be naive to shut my hearing

To blind my sight from the surge of an internal pulse of strength

For I am determined to feel once again the poison of your touch

Fleeting as you are,

I will try.

 

See,I choose to defy gravity

I choose to fly out of my fears and former apprehension,

I choose you.

Before the moment withers away like the aforementioned rose,

I will search like you were a lover lost at sea

Just that I may authenticate our fairy tale once more.

 

It’s not for a happy ending,

No.

It’s for the glory of the journey

Because,

Sometimes you win

And other times you learn.