Haidhuru

Unfulfilled desire is… the smell of downy fabric softener on cotton sheets. Like the faint smell of fabreze on curtains and comforters. It smells like my perfume, my body spray. It looks like a bed that’s creased only on one side. The left side. My side. It looks like me. Unrumpled, un-molested, and mussed only by 6 hours of a dreamless sleep. It sounds like 2-hour phone conversations. Like text messages sent on Saturday night. Like an e-mail that says: “I’m thinking of you”. It sounds like voice messages replayed on the metro, over and over again. It feels like endless stretches of miles of bed. It looks like eye-rolling from your girlfriends when you interrupt every movie with “OMG!!! Muthuri is just like that. Yo! That’s crazy….” Quickly countered with the sistas’ “Even you Muts, ma gũ-gũthikĩrĩria, mũndũ no auge kanda ĩno yaku nĩyo ĩkamaga mĩruthi gana thamaki cia Githumu. I mean— he’s sawa and all lakini… (“Listening to you, Muts, one would think this jamaa milks lions ama fishes in Kisum-City. He’s a’ight and all but still….)

It’s not….that scent of that one somebody who’s smell is still so new but yet so familiar. It’s not that heady smell of a fulfilled man competing and completing the sterile, barren smell of dollar store body mists and wallet depleting Clinique and Estee Lauder fragrances. It’s not a bed in a state of disarray that marks the steady progression of midnight maulings [[“Hau. Nĩ hau. Thass it… Hau, hau, hau. One”]] to 2 a.m. playful romps [[“Inastahili you keep still as I am in charge now]] to 5.00 a.m. take-your-time-niko-hapa-siende-pahali-popote-msichana-“God he’s so beautiful I could cry”-tamu malovings. More mutual exploration than u-raruaji. It’s not cataloguing of scars. Anatomical anthropology. It’s not faint snoring vehemently denied the next morning [[“Ah- mimi sing’oroti. Muts, I so don’t snore”- “OK, baby- you don’t snore”. “Kusema kweli I snore?” “Mmm-hmmm. Kwanza after pints? Ngai Baba! But imagine it’s cool- I like it. ”- “Game shot. That’s it. Kutoka leo, ebu tu-amue hizo story za kuniamsha usiku umemaliza?”]].

It’s not the sound of adamant male voice asserting “ Mutumia- I am NOT going to the mall. Nitaku-drop off alafu nije ku-kuchukua. I am just not up to losing a whole afternoon at the mall. Sawa?”. It’s not waking up to hairy, sugu, pararad male. It’s most def not his frustrated banging of steering wheel with “These fucking lights zinanionea. Yaani it’s gonna take at least 25 more minutes before we get home”. It’s not the scientific breakdown Route 1 vs. Inter-state 95 : [[“ Hmmmm… ebu njoga kidogo… Kuna 9 traffic lights on Route 1lakini ile intersection ya 7-11 stays for at least 5 minutes. Uzuri wa Route 1 is that hakuna traffic this time. On the other hand, 95 is shorter lakini kuna construction hapo 95 and they’ve closed down the two left lanes so we’re probably better off going on Route 40 mpaka mall, alafu tuende on 43 then we hop on 695— we should shave off at least 7 minutes”]]…. It’s a 100% guaranteed not the smile of a jamaa who you knows that to him, you are the pure and un-adulterated shit.

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Unajijua. This is for you….