When I walked by the little children who played in the field near my old house, they stopped me to ask what changed me.
They wondered what took the light out of my eyes because now I half smiled when I met them playing by the palm trees
They were curious to know why I now smiled only with my mouth and why my eyes never beamed with light each time I met them like I always did.
They wanted to know why I now walk with my head down and arms behind my back like an old widower yet I had no wife nor children of my own.
They wanted to know why I was balding and had the lines on my forehead.
Deep lines like those of their grandfather.
Most of all, they wanted to know why I now talk to myself a lot like a madman.
I doubt they would understand if I told them I was my own best friend.
So, I gave them half a smile with my lips and walked on because I did not want to be tormented by the innocence of their childhood.

When I went to church, the usher asked what was wrong with me. She wanted to know why I now sat in the backseat and not in my usual front seat that directly faced the pulpit.
She was curious to know why I no longer sang my heart out during mass like I used to and instead folded my arms across my chest and simply hummed each song like a mute person.
She was worried about how I swayed from side to side like a dying tree in the wind when the piano played.
She wondered why I was always the first person out of the church when the priest said “Go in peace, the mass is ended”
I could only shrug my shoulders and give a deep sigh because she would not get it.
It would have been like feeding a whale to a crocodile.
For how could she understand if I told her that I no longer felt the presence of God.
That maybe God was tending to sheep and not listening to me when I prayed or sang his praises.
For sheep, unlike humans, were simple creatures with no emotions, no laughter, no unending demands and no tears.
All they need is grass and a staff to direct them to the next green pasture.
So, I left her at the church entrance and sat quietly at the back seat Where I was immune to her critical stare and overly joyful personality.
Joy I never felt even when in the house of God, my omniscient father.

When I went to gatherings, everyone wondered what was wrong with me.
They all wondered why I always showed up alone unlike my age mates who always came with their wives and their little fat children
Or nicely shaped young women with perfect teeth.
They wanted to know why I hadn't found myself a nice young woman to marry
One who will iron my shirts on a Sunday night, serve me luwombo to fatten my sunken cheeks and make me laugh
For I looked like a man who hadn’t laughed in weeks.
They believed that the sadness on my skin could be exterminated by the gentle touch of a woman.
They were curious to know why I danced like that when the music played.
With my body off tune like a man fighting against the sinking tide of quicksand.
But, I shrugged my shoulders at their perennial complaints and dusted my mind of their demands
the same way i always slapped the dust off my trousers after a long boda boda ride.
For they would not understand the weight I carried on my shoulders nor the worries that drowned my mind.
Love, for me, was a luxury.
I had long made peace with the fact that I would walk to the barbecue and only smell the aroma.
If love was to find me, she would have to look for me and knock on my door, and hope that I am home.

On the night when the world fell silent and the stars crept behind the dark clouds in fear, I waited for you.
It had been long since I had listened to your voice
the alto that calmed my storm and brought down the tide.
To my ears, your voice is a sound that envelops my body and wraps around me like a jasmine, never letting go.
But to my spirit, it is a sweet gentle whisper that commands me to be still.

There, in my old brown couch, I lay down, counting down each second
as I waited for your face to appear on the other end of the line.
Will she show up? Are we going to postpone this again like the ones in the past? I wondered.
I did not want to spend another cold night alone without seeing your radiant face.
Nor did I want to dream happy dreams without seeing your smile in them.
For your smile is the fire that lights the wet wood on a rainy day so that you can warm your hands
and then sit back and listen to Alicia Keys while drinking your favorite gin because you do not drink beer anymore.
And so, I continued to wait, holding my breath in like a leopard in the tall grass that watches and waits as the antelope grazes a few meters away.

When the clock struck midnight, you appeared like lightning on a scorching hot afternoon
Your eyes, a bowl of sleep, like a child who had spent the entire day playing hide and seek in the neighbor's garden.
You laughed your usual laughter that shakes the curtains of your house like the mid morning wind
throwing your head back in your true signature fashion.
Despite the time of night, your beauty still stood out like a giant cross on a cathedral
and all I could do then, was bow down in worship.
When you finally spoke, I knew then why I fell in love with you in the first place.
And I understood why I could let no other man have you.

He lost his mother when he was five. His little brother was two.
His father remarried five weeks later but he was no longer his father.
He was just a man he lived with in the same house.
A shadow, always hovering over the entire house with darkness
Filling even the spoons with melancholy.
No words were ever spoken between the two.
Perhaps because he looked like his mother.
Mostly, he had his mother's smile and he believes that is what made his father angry each time he looked at him.
His father never tickled him like other men did their young sons.
Nor did his father throw him up in the air like their neighbor Banda did with his boy.
He always thought that maybe his father hated him.
But, it is his smile that his father did not want to see. 
Because it reminded him of death, his wife's death.
And he chose to keep things that way. Dead.
His little brother died just after turning five.
He does not know what killed him.
Back then, anything could **** a child. Even the shadow of an angry father.
For it's cold wind would wrap around you and you would feel your heart go cold until the beat stopped 
Like the night drums at the village square.
He was only eight then and that is when he left home.
Home was no longer a place of comfort.
Home was a grave in which he lived, fearing that one day, someone would throw soil or a flower down at him and bid him adieu
And he would be forgotten like his mother and little brother whose names no one even bothered to whisper.
He never wanted to be forgotten. He wanted his name to mean something.
He too, wanted some one to look at his smile and lose their breath.
He wanted someone to hug him and hold him tight for the first time.
Most importantly, he wanted people to remember his name.
And so, he ran away. 
Never looking back to see how his home looked like.
Today, he waits in the locker room
Slowly wrapping the band-aid around his hand. 
Four times around his wrist, four times around his knuckles, through his fingers, twice around his knuckles again and finally twice around his wrists.
He does this as he nods to "Many Men" playing in the background
A song that has been his anthem since he ran away from home
Each word from the song tattooed on the walls of his blood vessels.
A blood covenant to remind him of his dark past and the hope of a future filled with sunshine.
He is a fighter now and today, he takes on the reigning champion.
The one who just left jail after battering his wife.
His journey to this moment has been uphill.
Like Atlas, he has always carried his world on his shoulders 
Never putting the burden down for only he understands the pain of the weight.
But he wants his punches today to mean something
to cause immeasurable pain to his opponent
and maybe break his jaw partly as retribution for his opponent's wife.
He takes three deep breaths as he hears his name being called out in the arena
A sign that the hour has come.
Unlike his previous fights, tonight he walks out to the ring in silence
Listening to no music but the shrill cries of the ghosts from his dark past
Confident that they will all fall silent in the fifth round when his opponent hits the canvas.

There was a time I was angry with God
And I wanted to challenge him to a fight
I had cried out to him on those dark lonely nights when sleep eluded me but he never answered.
He stayed quiet like the darkness.
You see, I was tormented and needed his refuge
but he stayed silent each time I called.
I wondered what kind of God would watch his child crushed down by pillars of heavy concrete
and have their skin pecked at by starved vultures but still not interfere.
If he was the Almighty, he would surely move a few pieces and the tables would turn.
Or, maybe, he would come like a gentle song in a cold wind
and the sound would comfort me.
But no, he stayed silent like an owl on a lamp post.

Slowly, my anger suffocated me and filled me with the rage of a whirlwind
And all I wanted to do was punch through his ribs with the force of a King's chariot escaping from the battlefield.
Maybe that would shock him out of his daydream and get his attention
Plus, I knew he could take it.
And so I called him out to the arena
the one where I had been crowned the wrestling champion when I was 12.
I asked him to step out of the shadows in the sky if he indeed is God
But just like before, he remained silent
As he always was when I made love to my lover in the violent rains of April.
I screamed his name again, this time calling him Jehovah.
Thinking that his insolence was because he might be picky with names
And, just like before, he did not come.

Finally, I stared up at the sky, straight into the sun
because I wanted to show him that I was a more than a man now
And the sun did not scare me
I believed that maybe if I stared long enough, he would blink
And reveal himself behind the sun.
I shouted out to him and beat my chest five times like an angry ape.
Remembering how Jacob had once wrestled him from dusk till dawn and did not relent
So I thought that I too, stood a chance.
This time, I wanted to be the one to break his hip
And make an eternal name for myself
But God did not show up.
Only He knows why.

©Maathe