Tetu Shani — AfricaSun | Jacob Banks feat. Avelino — Monster
To return to oneself is to focus on understanding no one else.
To be understood is overrated.
For how long shall a single man continue to be told his dates are outdated?
To be taken back in only to be frustrated,
before witnesses whose opinions remain unchanged,
is evidence that new witnesses might finally salvage whatever little is left undamaged.
To love is to be pained by burdens,
or some assume so wholehearted,
But I opine that to be loved by another involves pain, yes,
but not an inexplicable inability to use one’s head,
in the pursuit of reason and compromise in seeking a point of mutual agreement.
I can finally see my past clearly,
Sure, I’ve been headstrong and foolish, I’ve smoked heroine,
I’m proud to have been reduced to feeling like a snotty, little shit while unable to sleep on my left side for 7 months with bruised ribs,
I am proud — though many seem perturbed by it — to have walked through the fire of hell and arrived back to be cooled off by familial spit.
They can hate my newfound, soul-deep drip,
They can say I philosophise because they believe I smoke trees,
But I’ve discovered it’s ancestral and cannot apologise for things people can only say behind the scenes,
Sssssssssssss…
Because before me lie all my dreams and for right now, I’m just trying to ignore that so I can be.
So go ahead, believe as they will,
That I’m nothing but a headstrong mũgũrũki,
It’s not the first time someone ignored my beauty in favour of chauvinistic definitions of masculinity,
In case you forget, I went against that trend,
And I’m still not breaking the internet.
I have survived more than they’ll see in entire lifetimes,
These people with conviction that remain sucking on teats of invisible suction tubes tied to their own derrieres by those keen to be believed.
I have only my heart on my sleeve and truly believe,
that if I died of a heart attack from the implosion suddenly caused by their fuckry,
this should be my eulogy.
Burn my ashes, dear world, and fucking celebrate that at each point I saw the edge and paraglided off the cliff,
Bring those ashes and spread them around my grandfather John Mbora wa Njai’s grave, that I may rejoin him,
Our home is here in the little, Chrome- and keg-inundated hamlet of Gatitu, Nyeri County,
And I’m sure anyone that objects to this will learn that my clan (Ambura) will reclaim this carbon, paltry representation of infinity,
when the rain they send for me comes dripping merrily to my rescue from a distorted and broken reality.
To be alive in this age, I have learned to turn the page perpetually,
And am unafraid to use primary school fascination with the dictionary,
to defend my right to be Evans Campbell, Mbora Muthee, Snave Llebpmac and/or Just Me,
They gave me till the count of three,
So I told them to count 1 and see me in the trees,
By 2, I realised I had tactically hit them at the knees,
By 3,
There was nothing left but my ashes, fuck a phoenix!
People pick and choose,
They suggest and muse,
But what matters here is what you *do*,
No one gives a fuck what you think, they’ll remind you until you feel abused,
Then you’ll begin to get amused,
You’ll finally turn it around and the world will be on Sasa|Viu,
When you get to that stage, don’t expect to be confused,
for anything less than a buffoon,
Simply for expressing facts that differ with their opinions of you.
I have said often here, but it’s worth repeating,
That I shall never justify my existence and way of being to anyone again,
As I strolled the streets of Malindi barefoot, hunger-stricken and beaten,
For *3* (is this number following me? 👀) weeks and expecting *indefinitely*,
No one reading this was with me.
When I got stranded in Zanzibar/TZ for *13* days, expecting *finality* to my suffering upon my return to a soulfully soulless Nairobi,
No one reading this experienced the weights placed on my being,
So, excuse me, WTF ARE YOU SAYING ABOUT EMPATHY?
Let’s take a second to establish that the dynamics that are toxic,
No longer leave me coughing and choking,
I simply step to the side like I’m hopping,
Then get my palms sharpened for some fatal bullshit chopping,
I am prepared to use nothing more than my mind to deconstruct these glass houses atop water bed foundations, complete with rosy flooring,
I need not come to blows over your deficiency in capacity to be told and tell in equal measure and with equanimity,
For my mind and yours, all I want is ☮️
The time has come to show that there are degrees in these streets,
And in the hot African sun of Malindi streets I have walked on tarmac with my bare feet,
31 degrees and so mentally gone because of my paternal situation that caring ceased,
I have ceded that much power just so I could be rehabilitated and realise that all my life I tried so hard for others besides me,
And the time has come for the Emperors to wave aside the king, respectfully,
As the Mother Empress intended for things to be when she sterilised the emotions of her history,
I’m leaving the house she half-built,
Because I tried to hang off its banister with my brother’s belt and, despite failing miserably,
Have never heard anyone, in years over *3*, try to establish honestly what could have driven me to such an extreme.
But, these were things that only caused slight, injury,
And I had to raise my head to see that they are not for me,
I'm strolling by a river I just swam in,
And dancing when the rain my ancestors sent over finally arrives in the moment of my need.
I’m happening,
I’m happy,
I’m Just Me,
Mbora Muthee
EVANS CAMPBELL ilikuja tu na mkatoliki na mkoloni,
Samahani 🙏🏾✌🏾
Muse: Tetu Shani — AfricaSun | Jacob Banks feat. Avelino — Monster
