Edith & God. God & Edith.

-Edith is walking alone in a vast white desert. There is nothing in sight for miles-

"Edith! What do you want?"

"Always happy to see me, aren't we?" Edith smirks.

"What do you want?"

"I don't want anything," she pauses, "...I think I might be dead this time."

HE sighs. "You don't say? What gave it away? The vast emptiness of this abyss? The disconnection from time? The fact that you're hovering 2 feet above the ground?"

-Edith notices the space between her feet and the ground, for the first time-

"Wow. For a supreme being, you sure are one caustic motherfucker."

-Edith strolls casually to an empty point in space and sits with her hands in her face-

"I mean, I knew it was bound to happen sometime but I'm still so young, y'know, well...was...
I kept hoping it was all just a dream but...it feels different from all the other times."

-Edith stands up and jumps forward onto more air-

"Plus I couldn't hover before so that's new."

"Yeah it comes with the territory," HE rolls his eyes.

-Edith prances around for a while. She sits down and loudly exhales. HE watches, amused-

"So what now?" Edith asks.

"I don't know. You wanna prance around a little more?"

"I'm serious. Am I going to be stuck here with you for all eternity?"

"Oh c'mon. It's not that bad. We can have deep meaningful conversations about life..."

"Don't..."

"...I also enjoy long walks on the beach and calamari."

"Jesus Fucking Christ! I know why my life was so fucked up. God's an ass, ladies and gentlemen."

-HE laughs. Loud booming laughter-

"Such a bore. Okay you wanna be re-incarnated? Is that what you want?" HE asks.

"I don't know. Do I get to choose where to go?"

"It depends. How big of a shit were you before?"

"I was fairly nice."

"You ignored beggars."

"They're annoying. And some of them are actually capable of self sustenance so why should I give them a cent? Bunch of freeloaders."

"And you never visited your grand mother."

"She's mean."

"She's gonna die soon, just so you know..."

"So I'll visit her here. Mischief managed."

-HE sighs- 

"You, my dear, are a terrible person but you make me laugh. Congratulations, you've cracked my frozen soul."

"You have no soul."

"Touche. I'll tell you what, I'll cut you a deal. Middle class family. Norway. Mom's a nutritionist, dad's a dentist so get ready to eat your greens & floss."

"Fine. Do I get to keep my memory?

-HE laughs. Loud booming laughter-

"Did you seriously just ask me that?" HE chuckles, amused.

"And I'm the bore," Edith rolls her eyes, "Whatever, let's go."

-Edith closes her eyes and spreads out her arms. Nothing happens. Edith opens one eye-

"Uhmm, yo...what's the hold up?"

"Oh, you mean't now?"

"No shit. Beam me up, Scotty."

"Okay...well, bye."

"For Christ's sake, stop being so melodramatic and zap me already!"

-HE exhales loudly. Edith begins to flicker until finally, she disappears-

...

"...such a bitch."

A Brief Extrospection Brought To You By 3 A.M

You know that moment when your digital clock/watch/timer is stuck on unreadable figures and we all just assume that means error?

What if it’s trying to convey us something …some sort of message & we’re all just here assuming it must be broken because we can’t understand it?

I think appliances are conscious beings. I mean, for all those parts to be assembled for it to relate with us even for those 30 seconds you warmed up your burger, it must take a pretty good sense of self awareness, just a little though, to communicate to all those different parts so that your burger tastes as good as you want it to. Think about it.

We treat them like they’re our slaves because they do our bidding when really they’re just doing us a favour.

Here. You can look at The Persistence of Memory while you ponder upon my words and what drugs Dali was on when he painted this.

Stories of Our Lives or We Officially Suck at Being Human.

Ugh.
I'm gonna just leave that there.

So The Nest (an amazing Nairobi based arts collective that always seems to be doing the most awesome projects) made a film called Stories of Our Lives about the lives of LGBT folk in Kenya. They were initially going to release it anonymously but decided not to because it's 2014, and it's about time people got their heads out of their asses.

Still with me? Great. Let's keep moving.

So they premiered it at the Toronto Film Festival this year & thought, "Hey, you know what would be great? If we could show this movie to the public back home because it's about Kenyans, for Kenyans, by Kenyans." and that's what they did...or tried to do. *Insert rocket malfunctioning noises*

Basically, the Kenya Film Classification Board (You remember when they tried to ban Wolf of Wall Street and no one, and I mean ABSOLUTELY NOBODY gave a shit...yeah, those guys) restricted them from doing that under the premise that it "Promotes homosexuality" & "Contravenes the morals and values of Kenyans" or something like that. So that was that, they're trying to appeal it and we're waiting to see how that goes.

But ah, dear reader, the story progresses. Yesterday, they arrested George Gachara, executive producer of the film, for failure to obtain a licence prior to shooting (You can see The Nest's statement about this here). They released him on bail but he has a hearing coming up on the 18th, which is tomorrow.


So a lot's going on at that quaint house of creativity on Jabavu road right now. And a stack of questions are buzzing through our heads.

Did they break the law?
Well, yes. They did. It's in the Film & Stage Plays Act Cap.222. Shooting a film for public exhibition without a licence is punishable by a fine not more than Ksh. 100,000 , a sentence not longer than 5 years or both.

So why didn't they just apply for the licence?
Because they probably wouldn't have gotten it either way. Part of the application process involves giving the licensing officer a copy of the script and a synopsis of the film. So they'd have just red stamped it "DENIED" & moved on to licensing the next Aromat commercial.

But they did the right thing, right?
Abso-fucking-lutely.

See, I feel like the whole 'morality' thing is just a ploy for people to distract themselves from their  personal issues and feel better about their crappy lives e.g: "Even though my father abandoned us for his mistress and I'm an alcoholic with commitment issues, at least I'm not homosexual." *smiles & goes on with shitty life* 
And politicians use it because they think that we wouldn't notice the fact that they're stealing money from us, grabbing land in Karen & basically doing shit-all if we focused on something else...the homosexuals.
(Because the homosexuals totally made them do it)

I'm gonna throw another "Ugh" in there for old times sake. Ugh.

I just don't understand why people have their rectums in a knot about it. I just don't.
Gay people are real. And they're everywhere. They could be standing right behind you in the bank, sitting beside you when you eat dinner...or reading this right now.

Fucking get over it.
NOBODY is trying to fornicate in your face. NOBODY wants to have sex with you (If you're gross to people of the opposite sex, you're probably just as disgusting to people of the same sex. Face it, you're still ugly.)
If someone being the true versions of themselves makes you that uncomfortable then you should probably deal with those deep rooted insecurities first before deciding your next course of action.

Homosexuality isn't a foreign concept. The church is a foreign concept. Skinny jeans are a foreign concept. Rick Ross is a foreign concept. Christmas is a foreign concept. Homosexuality is just as old as heterosexuality.

The fact that I even had to blog about this just goes to show how much ignorance we still have left to eradicate in this country. Can we make that happen, please? Vision 2020 and all that jazz. I'm ready to start making posters.

So you want to talk about morality? Homosexuality isn't immoral. How can loving another human being ever be immoral? Because they're the same gender? Is that it? Jesus Christ.

Bigotry, hatefulness, discrimination. Now that's immoral. Hating someone so much because they're not like you.
The sooner everyone realizes this, the sooner we can get to channeling our hate to people that really deserve it, like ISIS or corrupt politicians.

The Nest made a beautiful film that would have sent our film industry to the heavens but because of idiocy like this, I can't watch it. That makes me sad.

"A virtue," they said. "Patience," they said, narrated Yoda.

I’m impatient as fuck.

I hate waiting. Waiting is the bane of my existence. If waiting was a vegetable, it would be okra.

But unfortunately for our kinky haired protagonist, I have to wait. It’s just one of those things I can’t avoid: inevitable.

I’m one of those people who’d play the Sims and have my girl Sim meet a boy Sim on the street, maybe make some small Sim talk with him then I would dedicate the rest of my time playing that God-forsaken game into making him fall in love with her as quickly as possible so they can start their little SIM family & I can finally feel like I’ve accomplished something for once in my damn life.

This never worked out too well. The boy Sim always found my girl Sim too pushy which apparently is a major turn off for guys in the Sim world. But I just HATED having to wait!

They’d have to be random friends first, then bffs before they can be romantically involved with each other; that would have taken about 5 days of playing which is like 2 years in Sim years which is a lifetime in Mel years. Ugh!!! Can’t two physically compatible Sims just meet, have a quick conversation to check if anyone’s dumber than the other and cross off any deal breakers and just get to doing the nasty & popping babies?

(Believe it or not, this isn't a metaphor for anything. I just hate how slow those darn Sims are.)

                                                          

But again, everything good in this realm requires patience to be attained. Sucks hairy ape balls but that’s just how the cookie crumbles, honey. Tough.

I have to wait and follow the path of consistent exercise & fruit so that I don’t look like a badly cooked mandazi in the next 3 years and so that I can get that banging outer body little dinosaur child me day dreams about. (My inner body’s looked like a slightly abbier version of Beyonce’s ever since I was 5 years old so I’m good on that page.)

I must wait and study so that I can sleep at night without breaking into an existential cold sweat. (And also, I really want to get to that point where I can work “Mandamus” into my everyday conversations)

I am obliged to wait & moisturize & deep condition in order to get healthy flowing (uhmm, 4b/4c hair doesn’t flow, it shoves) coils and walk around looking like black mermaid Ariel. I’ll even get the sea shell bikini top to go with my new found identity.

And a lot of other things but it’s mainly those 3: Be hot, be smart, be mane-y.

Ugh. I wish life had a fast-forward sometimes, (and an erase for those Saturday nights I yelled YOLO too loudly, too many times) but mainly a fast forward.

Dark Chocolate, Creme Souffles and Other Euphemisms.

To be light skinned…

That’s just the dream isn’t it?

The Kenyan dream? The black dream?

Since the days of the Fair & Lovely ads on KTN,

“Makes you fairer” “Enhances your complexion” “Removes dark spots.”

Which for some people, means their whole face.

To be the colour of a honey roasted cashewnut,

Have all the men do double takes as I swivel on by,

Sashaying my hips left, right and centre.

I’m the dream.

I’m the dream girl.

I’m like a Barbie in it’s box.

You can look but you can’t touch  because I said so, that and the shade of my skin.

We all know the drill,

“Light bitches be like…”

“Dark skinned bitches be like…”

Light skinned girls are beautiful, high maintenance and classy.

Dark skinned girls are the market vendors, begging you to please please please buy their tomatoes 20! Tomato 20! Ishirini tu! Tomato!

And we automatically assume that their struggle wouldn’t have been so hard if only their mommas' had a sweet tooth for the yellow yellow.

It’s funny. We’re a race that divides our self so much to bicker over something as frivolous as the hue of our skin. Leave alone the colour, now we’re putting it into Crayola subgroups because we’re Just. That. Shallow. Like we feel like we desperately need to cling to some system of hierarchy, so that everyone knows their place. (and yours)

So girls grow up scrubbing themselves raw and hating their parents for not being a bit more exotic. 

They become teenagers, and cake themselves with powder or foundation that’s 3 shades too light.

 Adults. They can’t afford to spend 50 million on skin lighteners,

 I mean, it’s not like the starving people in Turkana need to eat or anything.

 It’s not like people, displaced since 2008 don’t like the quaint tents they're living in. I digress, adults.

So they buy their juice from the little boutique known as River Road in itty bitty tubes and bottles and slather that rich creamy goodness every night like a washed out musician snorts coke.

 “Yaaasss sweet elixir, make me beautiful. Make me desirable. Make me better! Make me better!!”

 And it worked. You go girl! Just hide those knuckles and those elbows and no one will even be able to tell you zapped your melanin away. I repeat, you go  girl.

And she’ll keep maintaining her gorgeous new flesh because she has 4 dates this weekend. She hasn’t been asked out since form 2, Kamau from the Funkie, he smelled weird. She loves it!

 She’ll keep at it until the day the mercury in that itty bitty tube that zapped the life out of her skin, zaps the life out of her kidneys or liver or heart and that will be the day she stops.

So how long? No really, how long? Lemme know, a year? Two dozen decades or so before people realize that you don’t need to change the cloth you were born in in order to really feel beautiful…like the white girls on the cover of magazines. 

“Don’t be silly, I know I’ll never be white.” 

“But it’s close enough, innit?”

 And because of this, beautiful babies grow up thinking everything that grows out of their beautiful skin is a curse, so they relax and they weave and relax to cover that thick ugly mess of kinks …like the girls on the magazines. And they burn the gift passed down to them since the beginning of time because unfortunately, in this case, it’s not the thought that counts.

We need to teach girls to love themselves, inside and outside, whether they’re the colour of a creamy latte or sweet black tea. And if this is so hard for you, if you can’t find the strength to love yourself as the you you know, then sure…go ahead, change it. I’d be lying if I said we won’t judge. I mean, @MissVeeBeiby has only a thousand or so tweets and articles written about her everyday. But goddammit woman, just love yourself and be happy dammit! Be happy.

Be happy.

Echoed The Sound of Silence

Mary & James sat in silence. Thoughts louder than both their beating hearts.

“I love him,” Mary knew. “But it isn't enough.

“I love her,” James knew. But it isn't enough.

They looked at each other & on the count of three, held their breaths.

The years passed grew stale as their inhaled breaths. The silence pierced their ears.

They wanted to speak but they couldn't. 

They wanted to breath but they couldn't.

James wanted to breathe in her hair. The sweet smell of strawberries & cream that wafted through the air at the slightest breeze.

Mary wanted to breathe in his hair. The sharp smell of his skin after a day in the fields, the smell of his fingers as they fluttered down her face and traced patterns on her skin.

They wanted to breathe. 

But they couldn't.

The silence grew louder and their heartbeats grew mute until all that was left were the unspoken words that floated through the air and gently landed on the palms of their hands.

“On 3…”

“1…”thought James

“2…” Mary looked at him, eyes glazed over with the unwavering loom of a hundred heavy swirling clouds.

Their eyes closed.

“3.”

Stillness is the Move: Dirty Projectors.

     

The llamas in this video are so adorable! I'd choose llama over domesticated animal any day.

Apparently, this song came out in 2009. I was too busy stalking The Jonas Brothers & googling ways to look emo without having to cut myself because I'm a pussy that was a 'cool' 'non-comformist' 'different' thing to be at the time to notice it so it flew right past me.

                                                             

  -I don't know why that sentence has so many quotation marks-     

*Sigh* We were fools. Pretty fools.

So I was swaying away to the Solange cover of this song (which is also really good, check it out) and I was curious as to what the original song sounded like.

Simply calling it amazing would be the biggest understatement of my life.

Amber Coffman's voice is so pure & accidental and I feel like I'm on a beach somewhere off the coast of Ghana jamming as the sun starts to come up. If that's not bliss by music then everything I know is fucking fugazi.                                                                

It is suffice it to say that this song has defined my year, given me a maxim to live by; not to mention addressed all (Well, some...) of my existential issues & I have no possible idea how the 2009-JoBro loving -Emo wannabe version of myself missed it.

I am aware now, the stillness is the move.

                                                                  

                                                                                                            

    And llamas!!! Friggin' llamas!         

Wind, Coachella, Carpe Diem. In That Order.

I don't want to get to a point in my life when everything is constant & steady because I'll always have a stampede of "what if's" marching through my mind until I go mad and eventually kill my family and die of a cocaine overdose.
                      -Okay, maybe not that extreme.-

Point is, when you want to do something? Why not just go out & do it?
You can make your whole yellow legal pad PROS & CONS list but in the end, if you know you really want to do it, just get out of your goddamn thoughts in your goddamn head & do it! Goddammit...

Par exemple:
Hello, my name is Melissa Kayanda and I live in a box. (Hi Melissa!) I want to travel. I want to go outside and see the world in all it's upside down glory. I want to feel, breathe and taste it all and inhale new experiences like it's petrol at a gas station.

I also want to do other things, but just for me.

I'm scared that if I start doing the things I like doing commercially, I'll either stop liking them or find out I didn't like them as much to begin with.
Does that make sense?

Unfortunately, my loop-holed theory can be thrown back at me:
I also want to have SEX (Ha, made you look).

My biggest fear isn't that I may die at any given moment of any given time on any given day. It's that I may die at any given moment of any given time on any given day without ever having experienced the single blinding pleasure that is sex.
...and that scares the shit out of me.

"Just do it", she said.
I know. You've caught me. I concede.

I am a girl and like every other girl, I want it passionately executed in a safe space with someone I wouldn't mind looking at or talking to or smiling silently while holding hands with for a few months/years/lifetimes after that.

Yes, boys & girls, I want it to be SPECIAL. Friggin' sue me. *insert sarcastic jazz hands*

So no, I'm not gonna Nike it & "just do it" for this one.

But there are a lot of beautiful things I wouldn't want to miss because I was tentative or just plain scared.
Like a wise bootylicious saint once said, "Enjoy your life. It's short."

One Should Never Trust A Woman Who Tells One Her Real Age (You Go Oscar Wilde!)

Apparently, dark and murky staircases are a really good place to process thoughts into word sequences that barely manage to make sense.

My birthday was yesterday and it made me rather uncomfortable.

Everyone says they don’t feel any different when asked, “How does it feel?” and I've been pulling that card too so it can just end there but in actual sense, I do feel different.

I feel sad. Not normal blog post sad; I mean down in the fucking doldrums sad.

I've never appreciated my youth and I know that’s never going to change for me. Until I’m about 25, I’ll always feel older than I actually am & hate every goddamn minute of it.

I blame my education. I've always been a steady 2 years younger than everyone in my class & instead of being proud of trumping all these old fucks & wearing it like a medal, it embarrassed me.

So I hide.I lie. I omit.

Because you couldn't say PATRONIZING fast enough. Have you ever been patronized? I can act like I don’t give a shit but it gets to me and boy, does it get to me deep.

So I've been hiding from that every day since I was 13. A little 12 month tweak never hurt anyone, now did it?

But I’m tired. I’m tired of lying. I’m tired of calculating the math in my head during conversations to see how old I “was” in that year (and I’m really bad at math). I’m just tired.

So I’m gonna tell the truth for a while now and see how that feels as a skin. Wish me luck.

I know I still haven’t mentioned how old I am which shows how I am yet to come to terms with it (Now I know how Blanche from Golden Girls feels) but hey...baby steps.