Aunt Gololi

-For Emma Karuri-

Yes I am twenty-eight and unwed
True and established observation
Puzzle is how my unwed nature
Affects the quality of free oxygen
That gets to your lungs and brain

I ought to be like Cousin Wendy
Got married real fast to your choice
Ay, if I had toad eyes, a hyena’s indecision,
The work ethics of a slug
And ostrich legs to carry all that mess
I would certainly marry the very first three legged creature
You aptly suggested…just like Cousin Wendy did.

Worst of all, I am a gold mining spoilt brat
By Jove! I cannot possibly comprehend such slander!
I am a spoilt brat, but I dare not mine gold! What of my nails!
Instead, in advancing the philosophy of the spoilt,
I choose not to marry a broke idiota.
So , until a man who embraces his responsibility a.k.a  ME, hops along
I am twenty-eight, thirty, thirty-two and yes…unwed

Marriage is a compulsory blessing
The Deity will surely punish me for my defiance!
You are one to speak
Uncle Twinky-winkky has 2 mistresses, 3 almost mistresses
And 6 bastard children happily ever after
Mismatch made at the gates of hell or a compulsory blessing?

Those eggs are expiring
Rotten babies are bound to come out of this one.
Well fortunately for me
You are not the power that will settle tots in my sacred womb
So at twenty-eight, thirty-two, thirty-five or forty,
I shall have healthy progeny
Because I have faith, the size of a mustard seed

The family will have an old haggard maid
What sort of reputation is that?
Pardon me; I will not be Bobby Brown’s nth wife
Just to save face for my extended family
Especially now that I figured, everything is not for everyone
Nuptials included

Linda Musita © 2010

Note: My writing is my heart. If you break my heart , I will tear you into pieces.

Get it Twisted Love is not a Beautiful Thing

I liken myself to honey that attracts ants. I would rather be a flower that attracts hardworking bees but my disposition is not a matter of choice. They say I was not a beautiful baby. A blessing, sometimes, because it is an unwritten law of nature that an ugly baby grows into beautiful toddler and a more beautiful adult. Fate, the puffed heifer, had other ideas where I was concerned.

Father looks at me and sneers.

“Your fingers are like the spaghetti sticks I cook for Mr. Andrew, too skinny for any ring to fit. Even the ones…customer made ones…A man would have to pay jeweler a billion money just to engage you. No such man! Msccchew!”

I direct my gaze to my slender fingers and think that there has to be a reason. They are not an accident. Well, truth be told, that is the only alternative I have: ‘Pep thought’. Otherwise I would stab my father with the fork I use to eat the leftover spaghetti he brings from Mr. Andrew’s house. Killing your father…patricide…is the father of all curses -another unwritten but loudly spoken law of nature-.

Honey is good even though it streams out of an ugly beehive. I am good. My insides are okay. I am happy most times, especially when he has gone to cook for Mr. Andrew. I love people. I smile at them and wave my left hand at them. I cuddle the dogs when they fall sick. I feed the rats and spare them the maize meal mixed with Indocid that father places strategically and hides uncannily for their death. I usually look for it and when I can’t find it, I arrange plates and plates of water around the house, to save their lives. I pray for the safety of the rainbow, the clouds, moon, the sun and the stars. They hang loose on the sky without hooks and I fear they may fall and hurt themselves.  I am good.

My exterior however, is a puzzle or a riddle depending on the date of the argument.

“Your mother was beautiful. Ahhhhhhhh hips and legs, toes and fingernails. I not know how we produce abnormal baby like yah.”

My mother was pretty. That is what he says (and so does everyone else… after looking at me like a circus freak). She left, though. Immediately she saw her child; a little girl with bony fingers, a big head, one eye shut-one eye open, pouted lips, concave belly, crooked ankle and pubic hair. No one knows where she went not even her family, which is also father’s family. Father and mother are cousins. Her mother and his father were brother and sister. They died as soon as I was born.

Father says it is my entire fault. I made mother run and killed half the number of my grandparents with my first cry. He also says that it is my fault that no boyfriend will ever want me for a girlfriend and that to have grandchildren, he may have to get drunk and do what Lot did.

“Lot?” I asked.

“Just a man in a big bookie. He wife turn into a seasoning stone. Later he took drink and does the deed with his daughter, two daughter.”

The deed. The deed. The deed. As far as I gather, a girl has to be as beautiful as mother was to get the love of a boyfriend. After the boyfriend loves her, he does the deed to her and a baby comes out.

I do not think that father loves me a grain of rice. I think if he does the deed before he loves me, an ugly baby will come out. I do not want an ugly baby.

I will stab him with a fork the day he does the deed. If only I knew how the deed is done and when it is done. I would stab him before he does it. 

Linda Musita © 2011

Warning: REFRAIN!Control your pickers and stealers