When I am Stripped of Your Charms

By Wafula p’Khisa

Sometimes I wake up and look at my bedside

To gaze at you– breathing softly as if you hold nothing against the world

I stretch my hands to feel the warmth & softness of your skin

But you grow wings and fly, evading my grasp, like dreams I desperately chase herein

The emptiness left, kills something in me.

 

I strain my ears to listen to your footsteps outside

Thinking you sneaked out to count stars, admire the seductive moon

or just marvel at the freshness of air as it caresses your tender skin

I stand by the window, hoping I would see you walk into my arms

as you did, the morning I lost my world to you

But the night slips through my fingers, carrying the anthology of memories

I had of paradise.

 

My stomach is full of butterflies, chanting requiems

that cloud the eye of hope.

You must see how ragged and famished I am

for darkness & cold & emptiness & the suffocating national sin hit me hard

when I am stripped of your charms.

 

Wafula p’Khisa is a poet, writer and teacher from Kenya. He studied English, Literature and Education at Moi University. His work has been published in The Legendary (issue 48), Aubade Magazine (issue 1), The Seattle Star, The Beacon (ebook anthology), Scarlet Leaf Review, Antarctica Journal, NYSAI Press, AfricanWriter.com, Best New African Poets 2015 Anthology,VoicesNet.com, The Pendulum, Mgv2 Magazine, Lunaris Review, Best New African Poets 2016 Anthology, PPP Ezine (vol 2, issue 1), Advaitam Speaks Literary Journal (vol 2, issue 1), Basil  O’Flaherty Journal, Emanations (issue 2), The New Ink Review, Better Than Starbucks Magazine (April issue,2018), Disgrace Land (ebook anthology on Zimbabwe), Tuck Magazine, The Elixir Magazine and Best New African Poets 2017 anthology. His work has also been published in French. He blogs at http //:wafulakhisa.wordpress.com.