LADIES IN BOOTS

Most of your adult life you are sure, very sure about one or two things. Things like I can never fit in a bikini, I can never wear a hawk on my head; I can never drink cheap alcohol. Omera. Just like I have started to be sure I can’t write now in the middle of my intro, at some point in my life I was sure I am not really a poetry guy. Just like sitting with a guitar on the pavement or wearing a sleeveless shirt thanks to a number of weeks at the gym, I thought poets were sissies, – and I quote – ‘poetry, guitars and biceps are desperate attempts to get noticed’. This is not a complain, it’s not a revolutionary call, it’s not what you want to think but you can think what you want, and above all it’s not personal. Sissy.


This is an arrangement of words that tell you the Adventures of Josh. Am writing this in the middle of a hangover, I need some water. In my head I have gone over the different ways I want this to come out but like teenage daughters, stories have a way of taking their own stand, either wrong or right from where you are stand is. Am going to be a very bad father to this story, am going to stand where I want and watch the story ruin its life- get pregnant, abort it or smoke it to leprosy, do a lot of alcohol, guys and useless stuff; whatever it wants. Brace yourself, you are about to get Harry Potterized.


It all begins before the beginning. It’s Sunday morning and my eyes are closed. My lips pulled to form this curve are forced by linguistics and traditional codes into calling a smile just so that you understand. I am smiling because am imagining myself somewhere else. At home. That shows you how much I was bored with Maseno.


I could have smiled imagining myself anywhere else; at that bus station where you play grab with a number of drunk or stoned(there is a very big difference)formerly gym going or guitar playing guys who will threaten to beat you up if you don’t get on the bus they show you; in the same bus -you are not in because you are afraid of settling it like a man, rather, unlike them you have brains that feed you and you don’t want them bouncing on the cold, wet pavement- this mother who keeps sleeping on your shoulder and smiling sheepishly when you wake her up only to sleep on you again in a few minutes. You could be anywhere, happily getting pushed shoved and threatened, bearing the weight of a mother's world, breathing, and smell of strange perfume on your shoulders. Sadly I was there, eyes closed. But I was not going to be there for long, am leaving.