Kendi Karimi

“The Atrocity of Buried Love and One Rainy Day” by Kendi Karimi

You buried the romantic in the dirt and stomped on the ground with your foot to make sure the ground was intact enough not to cave in and unearth that part of you. You swallowed the sun and her star sisters in handfuls of angst. The green land turned rusty brown. You cracked the moon in half and submerged each part on opposite ends of the gaping sea. You planted flowers in the dark and they adjusted to that. You planted trees with fruits that burst their pulps at night’s peaks and walked on the wild ground, thumping at your chest to lay to r...

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“What Will I Become After A Truth Like That? ” by Kendi Karimi

June 15th I woke up today and my first thought was Puzzle P. What is he doing? Where is he going? Who is he hiding behind his dimpled face? I woke up to sniffles from the bathroom; my mother was crying again. When I buried my face inside my pillow case, I was trying to bury something else. My eyes were shut from heartache thinking, what could I have done again? It could not be that this time she was crying because of me, my stupid brain with its stupid dares or about all my stupid ways in which I choose to live. It wasn't. June 17th I...

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“Don’t Wait for the Sun, Dance in the Rain” by Kendi Karimi

Maybe it's the way you pull my hand and wrap my arm around you, maybe it's the scent of your neck when I hug you. When you lean in smiling at me, something in my stomach rolls, dances, jumps up and down screaming. And then you call, and I can't sleep after because excitement is boiling under my skin. There is a madness in our chemistry; some mad winds are flowing over the ground of strong feelings. But, my dear, I am afraid of my storms. I am afraid I may have brought the past with me into us. I am afraid because I find myself smiling s...

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“What if stars aren’t stars at all, but holes poked at the top of a container so we can breathe?” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #104

"Are you coming tonight?" Perhaps there was something wrong with me, in me? Why would I like JD so much and hate his coming to my house? To my space? I knew it was safe, so which was to blame between heart and mind? Why would I want to hear his voice everyday, and everyday switch my phone off just in case he calls? Am I an alien? And then when he kept quiet, was he thinking just the same? Was he thinking about my weird ways or about his? Was he doubting everything about our everything? When the other day he asked if I was okay with us,...

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“Number 27” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #102

Beauty is a hunted down beast, a double-edged sword slitting slayer and slave. You hate the ones who have it and hate too those who don't. Those who have it eventually reach a need in their satisfaction for life, to have more, searching deeper than what their beauty holds, what it has made them hold, or who. When you're on the side where strangers call you the devil's child, the curse of the cursed, you are on the side of a lot of lonely times, a lot of times where you've wanted to die because of this lonesomeness, this thinking, "Can anyone...

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“Dear Shadow, the Night Does Nothing to Hide You” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #101

If only there had been more time...  Shadow, you are right. You are me, not mine. I wanted you to be mine, so I can leave you by the road to die and drive away. But when I stepped on the gas, you hit the breaks. When I stopped by the Cafe, you ordered black, and a new pastry on the menu. And remember when the waiter said, "We don't have that today," you shouted back? Why didn't you shout at Sam like that? Is it because he beat you first then hugged you from the back? Did you feel comfort in his arms after that? Dear shadow, don't...

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“The New World of RED” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #100

PART ONE A girl named Lu found her father dead in his lab. A microscope stood on the counter, red blood stained the white wash floors. Someone had killed her father, and she knew exactly why. Earlier that day, she'd heard her father on the phone. In a frantic manner he said, "I only have today. They know everything." Lu had no idea what her father was talking about then. Her eyebrows furrowed as she listened on to her award winning scientist father; a man who was obsessed with finding a cure to CVX-13. She knew asking him about the cal...

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“As I Lay Here Dying ” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #98

Day 30 Dear miss K, You are writing this in a calm state. You have a bucket list of 30 things to do in the next thirty days and what you're feeling now, at ten forty three pm is this; you're okay with death. Day 29 You ticked off the first thing on your bucket list today; call mum and say, "I love you, have a good day." Mum has been a mother to us in all the ways she could be, and while raising seven kids, her tendency to lean towards her short temperedness sometimes made you hide behind chairs, sometimes made you want to pee, and some...

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“Same Old Dirty Devil, Same Old-testament Gold” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #96

The officer’s eyes are a cruel shade of dark brow. He narrows them together, taking a step forward, before his partner objectively places a hand on his chest. “I’m telling the truth,” I plead. But who can believe a stranger with a red face like mine and no identity? These mortals with their papers of proof! Ever since dear daddy banished me from heaven and sentenced me to a life of emotional torture for eternity, I decided that I might as well make the best of the situation. Sure, I led a rebellion and everything, but when this devil left...

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“No Death, No Parting” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #92

“Mr. Timba, when was the last time you had a glass of whiskey?” As if he had the right to ask something like that. I knew that behind his desk or cabinet or wall, somewhere, he had a stash of scotch or whatever his poison is, just like I did. From one shrink to another, thanks. The relief in this thought is that it has come to me after I have already finished doing my business. I wash my hands on the sink and walk out of the men’s room. At work, they praise me for my deduction skills, but because I’m still under observation, I can never l...

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“Something Full and Round and Fruity” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #92

When he leaves, he leaves you with everything. All the memories and all the feelings, and you never know when he is coming back. Seeing him erases everything, as if what you had meant nothing to the universe to disappear just like that. Then there’s the leaving the house bit, do not try it under any circumstance. He always comes back. He always will. When you see him, love him and remember everything and drink from this remembering. It will be the feast to your energy until when next you see him.What fairytale that is!GriefAbsorb the loss of...

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“White Men Police Teeth” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #91

They had killed one of us again; those beasts in badges. To converge between the books of history was not a meeting for war but a cry for help. The woman shot today was Breonna Taylor. Two days ago, it was Michael Brown. Tomorrow; me, my mother or my friend. To come dipped from a fountain of chocolate is not all sweet because everyone wants a piece; some to love it and some to tear at it. To walk the earth as black is more bitter than it is sweet yet my heart beats wildly with a fierce hope when I hear the name Martin Luther King. On my wa...

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“Everything We Do Not Know aka Wild and Lawless” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #90

I haven't seen one of those in a long time, thought the ant as it jetted back to its layer on the burning desert sand. It watched as a bonny boy with pale dark skin bent over a small puddle of water. It’s alone, thought the ant. Its journey back to its nest consisted of constantly looking for a broken dried-up branch to take shelter under for a few seconds. The ants had developed a special mucus which they excreted to cool themselves down whenever they went hunting for food. Under a makeshift shade, they would blow at their miniscule legs to...

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“If I Could Tell You ” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #90

If I could tell you my story as little Rose, I’d tell you about my little chubby arms, always with a beaded bracelet on both my wrists. Nothing small, everything grand and majestic and exaggerated. But now I’m telling you my story as a branch on a tree, and mother bark is dying.In 1972, I was born as Rose Wamuyu, daughter of Njenga Wa Muguda and Beatrice Wawira Wamuyu. From as early as I can remember, I was fascinated by beads. My mother was the daughter to a member of the Mau Mau uprising. Although I never met my grandfather, who died with ...

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“How’s That For A Revolution?” by Kendi Karimi

Submitted to Contest #89

C/W: domestic abuse, miscarriage, alcohol abuse   The little I know about marriage I have seen from my mother’s failed experiments. She was a woman looking for love in a selfish and greedy world, and she got married three times and had nine miscarriages because either the baby was beaten out of her, or something was wrong with her womb, or the babies, my siblings, were too weak to make it.   To be free from all this pain, dear sister, to be free of womanly shame, you are free. At least dear brother, you retained your innocence, the...

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