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[mkabwere]

When god is Naked

Your father and mother are the authority on earth; God placed you in their care, and if you obey them, you’ll live longer. And they always try their best to nurture the seed that God has given them. In that, we raise their ranks both consciously and subconsciously. They become our gods. We ascribe our virtues, habits, successes, and failures to how they raised us. Sometimes we falter and rebel…

When god is Naked

[mkabwere]

I'll Choose You

Of the things I remeber, I once told someone that I’d choose them everytime. “I’ll choose you everyday.” Yes, everyday. I told her that, exactly that. And i’ve told those same words to my friends, family and even to the strangers I’m yet to meet. I’d call myself a liar for those words. And i want to call myself a liar. But, there’s always truth in lies, hidden truth that silently speak in thimes…

I'll Choose You

[mkabwere]

When Ants Bite

The worst of stings come from places unexpected and in magnitudes unimaginable, and perhaps in times when pain is low on the list. Sometimes it’s a lousy word from a lousy tongue, or a yell from an impatient driver in a traffic jam, or an irritated child on the playground. And sometimes, it’s from the person you trust your life with. Some ants don’t bite, just like some dogs don’t bark. Some…

When Ants Bite

[mkabwere]

Shadows of Hell

There are moments when time stands still. You hope it will wait for you. -Dorothea Lange I never knew time could stand for an individual and go on for others. I never knew life could stop, literally stop, as if it never existed, and still go on for others, making you a witness to other people’s lives. But one time you don’t know, and the next, when it happens, you know. You experience it, and…

Shadows of Hell

[mkabwere]

Wild Animals

Do you ever see wild animals? Wild animals, I’ve seen them. I always see them in plenty. Wild animals that claim to be civilized, wild animals that destroy the backbone of civilizations, wild animals that roam the wild and destroy the planet, wild animals that pollute the environment with garbage, wild animals that destabilize native societies, that destabilize nations that are growing, that…

Wild Animals

[mkabwere]

Places

Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it? There’s a place along the Indian ocean where most of my memories are stored. It’s a place where I learnt to swim, where I went when my mind was foggy, and returned home with a calm mind. I don’t know if it’s merit being my favourite, but for now I can say it is. It is because every part of my story has a bit of the place. It’s now a…

[mkabwere]

In Parts and Whole

What is one thing you would change about yourself? I never know if I still want to change myself. I never know if it’s always the right thing, to change oneself. It’s kind of puzzling, how can one change their nature? How can one change themselves if at all it’s possible? Don’t get me wrong. There was a time when I believed in the change mantra until I couldn’t. I struggled to understand that…

In Parts and Whole

[mkabwere]

Principles

Asking about my principles is like asking about my clothes. It’s like you are asking, are you a suit person or a shorts guy? Or you are the guy who never knows the preference of their clothing. They go with what they feel like for the moment. For instance, they wear a vest when it’s hot and wear a jumper when it’s freezing. Principles are embedded in culture. They are a way of life. We inherit…

Principles

[mkabwere]

Truth

Truth is brutal and merciless. It’s the code of creation, the code of which nature speaks and acts. It is the only ancient language that keeps going even when civilizations bury it along the way. To speak the truth and live by it is something personal. It’s an act of honor, an act of selflessness that risks everything in a society that upholds manipulation gimmicks for survival. It’s an act of…

Truth

[mkabwere]

My Creator

Who are your favorite artists? There are masterpieces done by master artists. Writers with their words, painters with their canvasses, musicians with their songs, athletes with their unbelievable records, acrobats with their unimaginable theatrics, actors with the masks they comfortably wear to feature as characters, con men who are best at beating the minds of even the careful ones, and…

My Creator

[mkabwere]

Goodbye Facebook

Facebook has morphed into something else. It’s unrecognizable from the Facebook of a few years ago. When it began, or rather when I began using it, it had an appeal, a potential to connect me to friends from all over. It benefited me in the way of a global village. I made friends from everywhere: Poland, Egypt, London, the villages of Taiwan, and people or friends I’ll never meet. But the allure…

Goodbye Facebook

[mkabwere]

Everytime and Everywhere

Tell us about a time when you felt out of place. A time? It’ll be a joke if I specify a single time when I felt out of place. Instead, it’ll be proper to say I felt out of place every time. I was this kid, introverted and diffident for all the reasons I could come up with. Everywhere I went was a place I felt out of touch with. School, the village and the playground were places I loathed. I was…

Everytime and Everywhere

[mkabwere]

Busyness

Time can obscure into nothingness. Busyness can really catch up with you, and you drift through the days, doing something and nothing all the same. You tick your to-do lists with everything falling in place. But then, months fly by, and there’s nothing you can account for. There’s nothing tangible to show for except the change in dates, months, and days, probably. Probably it’s not that bad.…

Busyness

[mkabwere]

What’s your #1 priority tomorrow? Pray my salah in time. Nothing else. If my salah is fixed, everything else falls into place.

[mkabwere]

Snippets

Daily writing promptDo you remember life before the internet?View all responses I’m not old enough to write about life before the internet. By January 1, 1983, I was nowhere on the face of the earth. I imagine my parents to have been young, unmarried, and maybe not planning to marry. I don’t know the kind of thoughts they had, the life they wanted for themselves, or even if they knew something…

Snippets

[mkabwere]

You for them

Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind. People forget you and remember themselves. Most times, they’ll choose themselves over you, even if they are to choose you. I don’t know if people choose others. But some do. Some do because it’s what they are good at. It’s what they are used to; forgetting themselves. The world would be a better place if people choose others. It’s the most…

You for them

[mkabwere]

Light upon Light: The Quran

Daily writing promptWhat book could you read over and over again?View all responses All the books that I’ve read, and I’ve read many, none compare with the Quran. None is worthy of a second read, a third, or a tenth except the Quran. Literature as a discipline has had me read all sorts of books: novels, plays, essays, biographies, Bibles, and comic books. To be a literati means to drink, chew,…

Light upon Light: The Quran