YOUNG MAN

AGE 19-24

I have come to learn that this the toughest range of years in a man’s life. When you’re in this bracket you realize that life was a smooth breeze and now it has turned to a series of hurricanes. These hurricanes hit every single aspect of your life; financial, emotional, social..you name them. When you come to this age you are hit by the realization that you are a young adult and this changes everything in your life.

Most probably you have joined campus and the first cliques you had are just a bunch of buddies you came from the same high-school with or some random guy you met the the  registration. You are probably in different courses but somehow you always find time to hang out together. Your parents send you ‘a little’ pocket money to keep you on the go and you can manage to save to some to spoil yourselves for the ‘furahiday’. You get a girl and all over sudden turns all your attention from your buddies to her, you spend less with friends and ultimately you adopt a new set of friends whom you lie to yourself suit your prospective future.

Few years into campus you feel guilty asking for some monetary favors from mum and dad so you start being clever and device new means of extorting some cash from them. At times you feel like honesty is sure the best policy so you call them and instead of asking for cash you end up asking how they are doing and hang up the phone. Well this part of a man’s life is called seeking financial stability. You want to show mum and dad that you are responsible and can take care of yourself just to earn more respect but in the real sense you are just one broke son of man. Your mind travels fast and wild and you start looking for some co-curricular activity that’ll earn you a few bucks. You tell yourself that education might not be everything and your network is your net worth.

Remember you have a girlfriend! Well you have to call her as she expects that of you, random treats, lunch and diner dates, surprise her with something new, take her out, spend time with her (come on ladies, i have even lost memory of all the hings you expect of us but lord knows its one hell of a list, way longer than Santa’s). So you are one guy tryna keep his academic records straight, be a loving boyfriend  to your girlfriend who wants time. (Time is money but it wont buy her a new dress!)

So at this ti,e she wants to talk to yo at night, she is frustrated, so you load up your phone with airtime(from the cash you don’t have) to call her, before she says it all your talk time is up(most of y’all ladies gotta lean to go straight to the point). Your whatsapp chats were long and now they start getting shorter, you get a phrase then couple of words then its a single word like ‘okay’ ‘lol’, a delayed response then you only get one word ‘k’ but if you are lucky then you get an emoji. Your calls get missed yet you are still the one to blame (ingredient for a  happy relationship: if you win an argument as a man then you have to apologize ASAP!) By now your calls are short and far in between and silence is now the main language of your relationship and your arguments are filled with things you had said over and over again.

So one day she hits you up with that text..’we need to talk!” even Satan himself knows how much we dread that text as men. you get the news you never wanted to hear “you are a nice guy but i don’t feel the  same anymore!” I swear nothing below the sun gets a man lost emotionally as those sets of words. You ask her if she really does love him and she hits you with ” he is loving caring blah blah” i don’t know the rest because by now no man is ever listening…any lady feel free to text me what you normally say. You tell her if it make her happy then you are happy yet you know she was your happiness.

Now you are one single guy just having random flings with all girls you want. You tell yourself its life and its hell amazing and wonder why you held on to her. This part of a mans life is called covering up your life and pretending but hell you fake it till you make it till you make.

Enough of that heart breaking story…fast forward…couple years later and you are in your mid or late twenties or early thirties, mum and aunt Susan are pressuring you to get married.  So this day you meet a young beautiful lady in her early 20’s. you ask her out sometime and few months you are dating the voila wedding plans…she invites her friends over and in the crowd sits a young man who is heart broken that his girlfriend left her to get married to an older stable guy but this doesn’t hit you that the boy is your reflection..

and he cycle continues

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LIFE BY THE GUN

“I shall not accept to be duped by patriotic songs on national media whilst my brothers are dying by the same patriotism. Oh just a disclaimer….I feel safer with ISIS than the Kenyan police.”

It’s a shame that my fellow countrymen are being brought down while they stand for their rights and by that I shall conclude this in the beginning: There shall come a moment  when we shall all be charged to stand in the courts of time and trust me history shall judge us harshly for the wrong ideologies that we supported and for the right ones that we rejected…and in that time the current suffering “minority” shall come to rise and tell me oh children of the brutal system, where shall you hide in those days of vengeance ?  I am no prophet but in this you can have my word..there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth..

I am writing this with tears running down my already tear stained face for the pain is too much. The pain of my mothers who have been crying and are still crying for their sons and daughters who have been dying and are still dying by the unforgiving gun of the police who have been  firing and are still firing in support of a government system that has been lying and is still lying.

If you meet me on these cold streets please remember to remind me that democracy is still governance by a government of the people for the people and by the people…who are of course the dying men with not even a straw to clutch on.

Someone please tell me why we are ethnically profiled against with shots fired at us each moment we raise our voices even while crying for those we have lost. My fellow countrymen try make sense to me why my brethren are being killed in cold blood in broad daylight like savages or like animals that have gone rogue as if we are children of a lesser god. Are we not crying for our rights top be respected..and now I see that the most preposterous notion is that the constitution holds the right to life with high regard.

One day that living God will say that enough is enough and how I long for that day to get closer so that our oppressors and their supporters can taste the sting of vengeance and if revenge is a dish best served cold oh angel Michael make it come from the deepest freezers you have in heaven… but then again men have never dreamed of a god above them so soon we shall stand in the stature of gods themselves and woe unto those who have the blood stains on their hands, woe unto those who made the earth wet by the tears of our mothers, woe unto all those who broke the hearts of our fathers and made them die voiceless in pain and agony.

But until then I shall ask where are you oh dear God? At least turn these evil men into pillars of NaCl (sodium Chloride) like you did to the wife of  Lot or at least open those floodgates of heaven and let it rain fires of sulphur like you did to Sodom and Gomorrah and if that is much to ask oh lord then open the earth and let them be swallowed into the belly of mother nature….OR BETTER STILL LORD GIVE ME STRENGTH LIKE SAMSON AND A DONKEY JAWBONE AND LET ME FIGHT THESE PHILISTINES IN OUR PROMISED LAND.

Notebooks of Alvin: I, I and I

You see I have loved that ignored me and really had good shots at ignoring the ones that truly loved me. I guess I am just some sucker for shit…

See I have felt bravery even in the times when I was most scared and gone ahead to do stupid things despite being one smart arsed.

See I have been loved and still felt unlovable maybe because in all that I needed the semblance of sanity without the responsibility.

I have run short despite being a six foot tall human male species and seen the height of my stupidity surpass my short temper or rather get fueled by the same.

I have smiled deepest even in moments that I was in the midst of pain and distress and turmoil and breakdown and anger and….

You see I have felt alive at the times when I died on the inside and felt lonesome in the most crowded places on planet earth…and at times I have enjoyed my own company in the moments when I don’t torment myself…

but in all this I love the fact that I HAVE BEEN ME

…the end

“I’m going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual. Call the time eternity.”

At times I have felt like drowning…not in love…maybe a bottle of whiskey…Well at times I wonder what really goes through the mind before one dies…do you ever just think of family, love, friends or something crazy like some erotic memories.

Come to think of it suicide is the one decision that you make in your life and trust me if you are successful then you will not live to regret it. I have seen many comment on the same thinking that suicide is cowardice but I would really like to challenge you to give it a try if you can even sustain the thought of it all. It is one brave thing to do depriving oneself of all the pleasures and pain of the beauty of life. For me I think that death by resurrection would be interestingly worse…but for as far as life and death are concerned you are better of being dead than live to see yourself lose hope. I have learnt that nothing is worse than a man losing hope…at times you feel helpless and well many people barely have friend and it’s even worse to live to the realisation that you known many people but have little or no friends at all that actually give no two shits about you. No one ever sees the pain behind the smile and the torture you go through daily in the darkest corners of your memories along the corridors of your conscience and sub-conscience where the soul fight your personality, pride, beliefs and identity. I have seen ladies cry and big men weep but none can be compared to the painful cries I make in my smile….the weeping that I do in silence or in between the highs of my laughter. When you have tried to kill yourself in your dreams and realise tat dreams are realer than life and you awake up and you just want to make your dreams come true. When you come to the realisation that the future only holds surprise years of old age and suffering then you actually long to cross over to a place where there is no self but just calm. When you have actually accepted that you might actually die today, tomorrow, next year or maybe 100 from now then you realise that there is difference in it all…in the end I will be in a lifeless body eaten by worms and ants whose ancestors I once trod on and maybe dogs, hyenas or wolves will be gnawing on the bones thereafter….at that point you actually see no point of delaying it all. Then you start thinking of braver ways to do it….hanging on a rope or jumping off a building is quite  cliche and you realise you are too proud to drink rat poison…you might as well be thinking of making the re-known 1000 cuts by triads with a fine twist of burning in chemicals. Some of us would think of prettier ways like joining the army so that they would never find out and just say you died in service and have 21 bullets fired in respect to the choices you made….and who knows by the time you actually read this note it would be too late and I might as well be the late….if that be the case do carry me in a 1965 Ford Mustang…………

“depression is real lets talk about it”

STONEBENCH CHRONICLES

I am quite an intelligent fella and I could for instance tell you how long Africa has been a country, how Kenya became a continent  or how many grams make an Instagram.

Some wonder why all my good looks and corny  vibes never seem to land Lisa Bonet or Nia Long or some Norma Jeanne Mortenson otherwise known by you as Marilyn Monroe. Well you see i know some sehctib (for read discretion read backwards) that i wish i could unfollow in my uncelebrated life.

You see most girls of my age love small talk and am so poor at that. See I have this irresistible urge to approach a girl and just have intellectual  talk and maybe something like the economic prospects of China, Putin’s next move on the AI talk and maybe Trumps take on our world supreme leader Kim Jong-Un. Now we all know or maybe I do that these topics have unfathomable way of introducing yawns to the mouths of these girls and I have never watched some trashy reality TV show like keeping with the kardashians .

I must here in however accept that there was this one time I met a girl who was unmoved and could not resist the urge to converse about democratic state of Estonia and the presidential election in Myanmar  and so I was quite turned on mentally you know to say the least. On a normal day am quite not a Mother Teresa type of person and Martin Luther King Juniors dream would actually come true before I even offer a lady I not interested in a drink…like if she is not intriguing then I would watch her burn a s drink water or even ask her whats that 911 number we call for  emergency….but this one time I asked her out.

The air was calm relaxed on that evening, the clouds meeting a golden goodbye shine in the horizon, crickets rubbing their feet and frogs harmonizing some classics…it was just one nice romantic walk. I still remember that long enchanting chat…well it felt like this one time you are normal and just warming your soda in the microwave sipping some rice, grilling some beer while cracking a hot one without the boys.

…so when the LSD and little bit of weed faded off I realized that I had been with a stolen Mannequin from a store downtown…

 

I WILL DATE

I happen to be part of a generation that has a totally different view of dating. We the Tech generation have inclined more to online flirting on Facebook and double tapping on Instagram to replace the real life version of compliments.

Nowadays we no longer ask people out; we rather ask them to “come over”. For a good instance I have no memory of telling an lady that I will pick her from her place or a strategic point all I do is just get there and send her a text (if they are lucky they get a call) saying that “I’m here already!”.

I have heard that first dates can be and as a matter of fact are awkward but then its worth a shot, that is if she says yes. If she says no then well and good because I will definitely ask another lady out. So on that first date I promise to be myself and I will try my personal best to make it more awkward and I will tell my usual stupid bad  jokes that I am, well accustomed to and just hope that we’ll talk about ourselves and family and anything silly just to keep the conversations going. If by the end of the date it doesn’t go well at least I would have tried and come to think of it I’d still have a calendar to go.

So to all my friends that I think are cute I will ask you out for an ice cream and if I like you more more coffee dates are on the way. We will not take snaps but focus on enjoying the moment instead of later on flirting on WhatsApp and getting angry on blue ticks. Maybe she might not even accept to go on a date with me but still I will beat my fears of rejection because after all I have seen worse  things in life…like someones pizza and a bucket of chicken nuggets fall in mud just when they’d gotten home!

Still I have preformed opinions of the girl I will date: I won’t mind if she doesn’t mind her own hair and steals my shirts, she looks like a lazy Sunday afternoon not Friday night, listens to the weird stuff I have to say even if she has no clue…and just then I will be willing to let my coffee get cold for her.

Dear Lord I really hope she thinks its awkward because I will make it a random thing. Maybe this unfiltered thought might turn out to be a happily ever after…..but honestly God let her give me drama and stories  to tell because happily ever after is one boring cliche. 

 

STONEBENCH CHRONICLES: POLITRICKS

“If you vote in anyone because of roads, hospitals, schools and interchanges then you have a small mind. That’s government responsibility!”
I can proudly say that my beloved country Kenya is in its most disappointing time in political history. We have simply perfected on the art of selling names, tribes and personalities over ideas and manifestos.
The problem is that we are educated but not learned. We go to schools to get knowledge but no one ever teaches us to carve the knowledge into everyday life application. So its always a case of “do as the preacher says not as he does” and so our children in schools have to follow the preachings of water while the very bishops and popes who hold the keys to the gates of heaven are swimming in gulleys of sewers. I bet the keys are already lost!
So today I will support someone thanks to group mentality and ipsos synovate.
I have not given my support to either teams (government opposition) because I’m torn between the choice of right versus the lesser evil vote. In there I stand in a dilemma of cross roads of making perfect choice for Kenya or just casting a vote.
The other day I was watching kenyan news and I must admit I was disappointed to say am #ProudlyKenyan because how on earth does it take days if not weeks for a simply cholera outbreak to be figured out and contained!? This left me thinking of what my very good friend Hellen Saru a pharmacy student in Kenyatta university asked: How prepared is the Kenyan government to respond to crises like water poisoning!? What if we woke up after someone poisoned the main supplies of water with chemiacals or heavy metals!  How long will it take the government to contain the situation or will we say we took a shit at death for our beloved nation?
How long is it to madaraka!? We are not yet free. We are living at even worse times of neo-colonialism. I write this with tears in my eyes that my grandfathers fought for independence from physical limitations like land only for me to be enslaved mentally!
If our ancestors woke up today they’d just die from shock if we can not afford being liberal thinkers. The older generation of politicians is not to fully blame for having instilled in our heads some retrogressive thoughts because I guess the English were wise when they said that History repeats itself!
The youth who are supposed to be the future are the ones lifting weights in preparation for wars of swords in favour of some old political mongrels and that leaves me thinking whether pens are mightier than swords! Maybe if a pen was mightier then maybe such actions would not have spoken louder!
What Kenya needs is not a Barrack Obama type of leader but a Muamar Gadaffi. The latter before his death had dreams beyond schools, roads, hospitals or interchanges. Libya if Gadaffi times saw pregnant women on government payrolls with free quality medication not the Kenyan assuarance of free maternity services, Libyans enjoyed free education all the way to university level and they are just but Africans like we are! Or is Kenya the child of a lesser god!? If not then tell me why we have resorted to feeding pockets and stomachs instead of minds and bringing in real time development.
We can not claim to have advanced beyond the times of the Late Mzee Jomo if right now we are experiencing doubles tragedy of increased unemployment and inflation.
No disrespect but Barrack promised our American brothers change only to realize that he couldn’t bring any by himself because he was being controlled by the “owners” the nation who are normally lurking in the shadows behind the presidential wheel. So he was left to steer a ship that was already sinking!

Take a look at the french election carried out peacefully and defeat accepted easily because of the rule if law hailing the sovereignty of the people and ideas while in Kenya a country of just about 10 million voters we shall rave and rant hurling insults and assaulting one another over love for specific people and political divides…
All I want is for we the people to exercise our civic duty with sobriety.

@kaizen_alvin : +254716061826