When a Woman Says She's Cramping

The next time a woman tells you she's cramping, never trivialize her pain. I know that period pains are not normal but it's pain untold. The kind you wish you'd be dead already. Darkness dominates your world and at the far corner of your bedroom is your breath laughing at you, yet you can't touch it. Everyone who has met me in the wake of those pains has seen exactly what a woman resurrected from death looks like.

Here is a poem I wrote during one of those.

When a woman says she's cramping,

Her world is cracking and breaking and aching and bleeding and burning.

Her stomach the center of all the atrocities.

She's seated on the toilet multitasking. Throwing up and asking her pain how much toilet paper should a bleeding woman spend for five days.

Before she calculates, she's crawling on the floor and rolling over in bed.

Every particle that hits her stomach is thrown out,

until nothing is left but her throat to come out.

Allover her tummy are the blisters left by hot water bottles she so expected to relieve the pain.

Insults sound like, 'get a man' 'get a baby'

Exercise, 'oh just cramps! Women problems!

So when a woman says she's cramping,

allow her to frown, to groan and moan for her body is a warzone.

She's won these battles on her own.

Allow her to chase you away she doesn't need you.

Far away from her world if you can't take her uterus away.

Allow her to crave for chocolates and ice cream at midnight and if she doesn't get it,

allow her to scream.

Don't judge the tantrums and the yelling.

Don't touch her she's allergic and fragile.

She might be wishing death upon herself.

Cursing her uterus for the torture,

wondering how heartless is Mother Nature,

And how ruthless is the creator.

Why the overdose of Buscopan, Ibuprofen, Ponstan and even induction would never touch the pain.

So when a woman says she's cramping,

allow her to be, a woman.

A friend

 

Crown Of Thorns

Replaying on the left side of my heart,

Are the words you said to me,

Still sharp like the wicked crown of thorns.

And they've been distracting my arteries from pumping blood.

I tried to push them to the back of my head,

 But realized that they could ring in my ears,

 Every time I knock my toes.

Everyday has been a struggle,

A battle to detach my thoughts from the truth of those words.

A fight to convince myself that I couldn't trust someone so dumb.

A soul search to teach my body how to be numb.

And my  tears how to slow down.

But how can I win the fight,

When every time I look into your eyes,  

Those words point back at me, 

Dangerous and capable of stabbing.

Be Grateful

Before you ask God to take away some hours from the day and add them in the night, think of the insomniacs. Be grateful.

Dear Heart By Elizabeth Opiyo

 

Dear heart,

I know you're broken. Again.

You feel ugly and lonely

Because the one and only,

is no longer the one.

You can't trace any part of you that once felt beautiful.

Darkness has replaced every part of you that endowed you with light.

And I can feel the pain stabbing and chocking every organ in you that has been strong.

Betrayal is sucking blood from the same veins you've kept loyal. 

While hatred has stolen oxygen from the arteries you've taught love.

You're bleeding and clotting because you don't want to show.

You're sobbing behind the bathroom doors in front of a mirror.

Because the world is not supposed to know.

Because to this world so much strength you owe.

And to your religion, much more.

But I still admire how you are capable of forgiving and healing.

Like a desert saguaro betrayed by the rains yet still holds on to the soil with hopes for another season.

So please introduce me to your god.

Tell him that I need deliverance from a demon of attachment and expectations!

So that dear precious heart,

Before I break you,

I will choose you.

And I'll be able to choose distance over tolerance.

I'll know the exact time to start the race.

And if distance means 100/km per hour,

I'll pace.

Faster than Roger Banister and Usain Bolt.

As if running from Catherine Ndereba and Kipchoge Keino

And I'll keep going,

Like Thomas Sankara with a determination for revolution.

If  I die I die.

Running!

Dear Mouth by Elizabeth Opiyo

Dear mouth,

please be patient enough to swallow the words that the ears feed you.

I hope the choice you make,

to either stay closed or open,

is only for a better cause; 

To heal and to bless. 

To make happy and wise.

To make love and peace.

Whenever confidence is less

because what you're about to utter makes no sense, 

I hope you find peace in silence.

But when silence is a pestilence, 

please let your voice heal the wounds,

for your words will be stronger than the pain.

Never let anyone's opinion stand for yours. 

Always stand for yourself,

even if your heart is racing and your feet can't support you.

When a Hitler or a lucifer pays me a surprise visit,

decipher the words to swallow and the ones to spit.

Do not let me conspire with them in silence.

When anger is bitter,

be still to distill the words that the pain instills in me.

Not because you are weak,

not because you can't speak,

but because you're confident and kind,

enough to give the mind the time to think and the ear a chance to listen.

Because ego doesn't suit you,

for emotional intelligence is your favorite shed of lipstick.

The Bird Of The Desert By Elizabeth Opiyo

Dear Desert Bird, 

I know you’ve been stuck, and for a while you’ve been fumbling.

For miles and miles you’ve been stumbling, into the terrains and the ravines.

The winds have been sending heavy puffs of dust to block your ways.

Winding and whistling into your ears that there is no way out.

But tonight I thought of you and I am woke to remind you this,

God gave you the strongest wings,

No matter your size, no matter your pace.

The desert is your home of identity, your root, but not your destiny.

It’s the beginning of strength,

The strength that presses you hard down the soil to grow roots deep enough to reach for water,

The strength that holds your wings so firm you’ve never been blown away by the storms.

The journey, the heat and the struggles seem endless, the oasis out of reach,

But your perched skin will soon be restored it will glow.

Cherish that cold freezing morning,

When you wake up with your wings frozen, bones fragile and almost breaking.

Like a grasshopper you’ve been hoping I know.

Never stop hoping.

Until you land on that grass you saw far away in your dreams.