My patients are dying

I’m a writer
It’s my profession; it’s what I do for a living

In my own way I’d like to believe that
I offer healing, soothing, encouragement, inspiration
I influence justice…
In my own way as a published writer I try

I have sat across from a child not so much older than I that has courted death every waking hour. Knowing he would never be called daddy, hubby, grandpa
Living each second with the knowledge that he was dying
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/health-and-living/With_leukaemia_everyday_is_a_miracle_71666.shtml

I have wiped the tears off another young woman’s cheek
who in her prime woke up to find each of the bricks she'd so carefully laid to build her life
In a heap at her feet http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/health-and-living/The_Rhesus_factor_One_lady_s_devastating_experience_65838.shtml

My heart has gone out to them and their likes As I listened Knowing that in my own way
I was easing their pain Letting them vent Calling out to the world to hear and help out
It was the least I could do
These people become my patients.

And I have failed them sometimes
Despite the number of those on whose faces I have put a smile
Whose minds I have eased of their worries even if for a while
reassuring them They were not alone They would be fine,
There were patients that have come through my 'hospital ward' and not made it back to their loved ones Better Healthier Happier
There are those patients I have worked on
And they have died

The 21 year old heart patient who died the eve of the day he was supposed to be discharged from his heart surgery ward Just a few hours after I had laughed with him on phone and promised to call in the next morning before he was discharged
And more recently, http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Man_shot_by_CMI_guard_dies_at_Mulago_73922.shtml
These are the people that remain with me always
It is more about those people I’m given the opportunity to touch
And yet they slip right through my hands without warning and they are lost forever
At these times I feel like a doctor who has lost a patient
And it breaks my heart

Saving virginity Losing face

The first time I received a love letter
It was from a senior one student
I was in primary five

The house girl found me on the verandah crying
“I would like to have sex with you”
The last line in the letter had read

Sex was wrong but even scarier
How dare he even suggest it

House girl laughed at me and I was puzzled
But he said he wanted to….
I argued
So? she countered
It’s up to you to say yes or no

Two years down the road
I was wiser
I’m not ready
I would always say to my S.3 dude
Whenever he asked for some

So dude
Who had been patient with me for about a year
Lost his patience and called me in one day

Again, Seriously this time
he asked for some
I’m not ready, again I said

When you say you are not ready
What exactly do you mean? Is there some thing you need to do, buy?
Some kind of ritual you need to do to prepare yourself
I can sit here or step out while you get yourself ready

I may not have been old enough at 12 to defend my stand
But I had enough brains to know that I had come to the end of this rope
And had to move on
Fast

I took off
from right before his eyes
As if the devil was right at my heels
and didnt stop until I was safely locked in my room at home with my V. intact and safe

Never saw dude again
I made sure of it
I also never stopped imagining him trashing me to his friends either.

Damned toilet cleaner

'Good beginnings guarantee higher chances for good endings'
that is what i believe
At least as far as the weeks are concerned

Normally therefore
I literally waltz into the new week
Grinning from ear to ear whether i feel like it or not
Stacked high with enough gusto to take me through the week

It’s not every Monday however that first thing in the morning I get my Jeans smeared in sludge on my way to work
Or that the stupid taxi driver sees it fit to drop me off
A zillion miles away from the park where i need to catch my next taxi
Knowing well that I can’t take a boda boda because of the mud.
Or that I walk in to do a story I was assigned at the last moment
By force
With a break neck deadline to go with it

Let’s just say
I got in here before 8am today and the only person
I have genuinely smiled at is the toilet cleaner

Because I hit her with the toilet door

What the hell was she doing behind the door anyway?
Can’t she find a way of cleaning behind it without being behind it?

(seething with fury, baring my teeth and claws. stay away)

i have a plan

when i am not talking verbally
i am still talking;
with and to my brain

i guess its what u call thinking in your dialect.

for all the silent talk i do with my brain however
i find i have never really come up with any brilliant ideas!

and i have come to suspect it could be because
all i do with my brain is reminisce;
about the nonsense i have verbally discussed already
laughed at or gotten pissed off about
and crap like that

so i figured that if i could empty this nut of all this nonsense
there would probably be room for new,
and hopefully brilliant ideas.

so here is the deal;
i will do all this non-verbal talk here
with my fingers against the keyboard
and hopefully, i wont have to rethink what i have already typed!
Brilliant(already) huh, what do u think?

so anyway
whenever we meet here
it will be because I'm either
awfully pissed, overjoyed or flat out bored
it will be that you are sharing in my non verbal conversation
and I'm emptying my nonsense into your head
to create room for brilliancy in mine.

I cant wait.
Welcome!

Testing microphone ...101, 102

Phew!!!!!!!!

was a damn long trek

But i'm here

Now