21 Confessions

You’d probably had thought you had just met her in passing. You know? Like how you meet a stranger at a club, both of you acknowledging your love for the bottle.  Rambling on about hazy details about your lives, a joke here and there. You laugh at their use of a very subtle reference of your favourite movie. The air is light and the vibes are infectious (pun intended). Both of you tipsy and light footed, before you lose each other in the blinding lights of the club.

You met her at the most improbable of places, or probable? It’s the usual bake up session at the studio, probably invited by one of her male friends.

“Hi, I’m Saint D, some call me Imanda. What’s your name?”

Both of you confess your love for the herb, and she says her name.

Just like you thought. Your tribeswoman. Unmistakable.

She was 4’10 and you kind of liked how your name rolled off her tongue. Effortless.

“So, what’s a pretty girl like you doing in a place like this?” you ask.

“You mean, what’s a pretty place like you doing in a girl like this?”

Your eyes lit up. You let out a low chuckle, acknowledging a film reference she just mentioned. And you can’t help smiling at the fact that she immediately picked it up.
You finish rolling up and spark it, taking a big hit, one enough to send your eyes rolling back in your skull.

You notice her small hands, the spicy scent of her perfume, the defined curls of her edges, her eyes. Her eyes. Her eyes. You snap back to reality and realise she’s waiting for you to pass the doobie. She takes a hit, two, three.

She doesn’t choke, she’s a pro.

At this point in time you probably did not realise how much life would change after this. You, a 21 year old in your final year of Law school, your heart still tender and red from your previous heartbreak. You felt like you were losing your patience. You felt like stepping out of your emotional being and live without feelings involved. Your belief in love stretched out more than the patience of an underpaid waitress at Charlie’s.

Moreover, the fact that you were a hopeless romantic only served to antagonize your plight. The spade that dug deeper into your psyche, widening the hole of misery.

What was the point in giving flowers only to receive thorns in return? Not only was the ordeal agonizing, by also humiliating.  The ominous realisation that you had to live with the fact that you could not make someone love you. No matter the rivers you crossed nor the hoes you dropped.

Still, you were dumped like Wa Kamau’s sack of Warus from a beat Toyota Canter in rural Kiambu.

You demanded for answers. Why she had to hide her hatred for you under the cloak of pretentious affection. Why she stabbed you in the back when you embraced her. She called it revenge. For the mistakes of your past lives. And in this light, and to be particular, K1 Klub House Lights, halfway your Passion Daquiri cocktail, did you see yourself for who you truly were.

A clown.

A clown who loved to his fullest. A clown who got her comfort food when her anorexia was at its worst, a clown who held her close during those nights her demons came knocking. A clown who held her hands tight when she wanted to throw herself onto fast-moving Nairobi traffic. A clown who dived headlong into this sickening pool of lies and low blows.

You started laughing. It started out as a small chuckle at first; but built into a boisterous laugh. Your myopia was hilarious. That you loved without sight. That you loved without thought. Isn’t that what you lived by? Don’t think, feel? She looked at you like you had lost your mind or something.

When it finally dawned on you; it felt like your heart was collapsing on itself. You were drunk. And heartbreak never felt this good. It was almost like it was alive. Devouring you in your entirety. It came in waves. The shortness of breath. The heaviness in your chest. The blurred vision. The sting in your eyes.

It was real. More real than the love you had for her.

That was when you knew it wasn’t you. You weren’t crazy. She was poisonous, and her venom had seeped deep into your veins. To the furthest recesses of your mind. Slowly crippling you. Slowly building the insecurity in you. The hopelessness.

Again, it was all a means to an inevitable end.

An end you had lived over and over and over again. Like a terrifying nightmare on loop. You were hesitant to admit, that on her part, this was the grand scene. To a plot she had meticulously scripted, and this was her final act, the climax of the play.

In her last words to you, she said that you saw this long time coming. Maybe it was the irony of it all, that fed her carnal desire to rip your heart open.

“Hey…Are you okay? You seem distracted”

You snap back to reality.

Her steady gaze on you. Her hazel-brown eyes peeking into your soul. You couldn’t help but notice her cherry colored lipgloss, the slight half bend of her upper lip as though she was hiding a rousing secret.

And slowly, very slowly, you’re caught up in a trance. The music fading into the background, reduced to a fuzz.

At this point in time, everything seems so small, so insignificant.

Overshadowed by her aura. Her aura that shone with a quiet polish. Her eyes were soft, as though they were inviting you to lay down your issues. Eyes that said she had issues too. Eyes that said you could all bask in the glory of your problems. Eyes that glowed with the kind of love it took to solve them.

You all of a sudden wanted to breathe the same air as she did. To run your hands through her hair. To hold her small hand in yours. To hold her tight against yourself and tell her not to think. But feel.

With a fairly less amount of effort, she had bust through the wall you had built around yourself.

And she had no idea.

This stranger that you just met. This stranger that shared a blunt with you. This stranger that made you feel oddly at peace.

This stranger that lit a fire in you. A small one, but that would; in the coming days; grow into a blazing inferno.

One that devoured you whole.

You had confessions to make, and this was the first one.