Silva Chege

Nationhood…light as air, formless as water, transient as time. Nationhood…we treat it as solid as bricks and mortar. Nationhood…an illusion at best; a death sentence at worst.

The words… the words… the words. They escape me like grains of sands slipping through grasping hands. I’m drowning in the black. The abyss is swallowing me up. I look down. I look up. I look around. There is no place to turn. Nowhere else to go. I need to get away from you – why? Don’t you understand what you’re doing to me? Doing to my emotions? Doing to my sanity? You’re killing me. I want to pack up my bags and walk straight out of the door, and never turn back. But, like a bungee cord, you keep pulling me right back into your arms. I hate you. I love you. I can do better. I feel safe in your arms. I can’t help but need you, even though you’re toxic. Damn it! Call me stupid. Call me crazy. But you’re the one for me, baby. Always, and forever.

Heart pounding. Breath quickening. Skin slicking with sweat. In the throes of passion, our limbs interlace like roots in a forest. With each new second that flickers in and out of existence, my desire for the writhing body beneath me burns hotter, and hotter until my dormant inner-self becomes volcanic with lust. Fingertips trembling. Lips quivering. Appetite wetting. As the moon unfurls midnight and blankets the room in wisps of silver and grey, I know my hunger can no longer be caged. Like a wild animal, it demands to be freed. It takes just one glance at his exposed neck – soft and untarnished, and my teeth are bared; desperate to be sunk into virginal flesh once more.  Damn it… what was once so bone shudderingly good has been dulled to nothing. What was once electrifyingly sweet has been diluted to barely a tingle. Draining the life of the innocents used to be better than sex; now it can scarcely appease. I used to be able to fly on how high blood made me feel. Now, I ca...

Footsteps fading away. Alone on a dark street. Quiet. Dead quiet. I feel cold. Teeth chattering. Drenched in street lights, I’m slumped against a lamppost – my soon to be tombstone. Its steel touch coxes away my warmth. Getting colder. Each breath is quicker and shallower than the last. My nostrils are flooding with gun smoke and the whiff of blood. My blood. I instinctively reach for the yawning hole in my gut. My life force seeps through my grasping fingers and runs into the nearby gutter. Crimson mixes with sullied water and cigarette butts. I Look up. Beyond the florescent blanket overhead, I can just about make out the splendour of the night sky and its spluttering of white and silver. Stars – they glint like diamonds in the dirt. The last time I looked up to them… I was nine and eager to wish upon a shooting star. Unlike other nine-year-olds, I wasn’t hoping to become an astronaut or the President of America. No, with little hands clasped tight and eyelids squeezed – I wis...