I burnt my finger on the last blunt
Watched the henna vine around my ankle
Wonder if it’ll taste grassy when he kisses it
If the salt will wash away before he sees me
If he’ll find the sand in my cracks
I read Derek Walcott on a bed of Lamu Green
Saw the scenes pixel in the typewriter ink
Poems stolen from the Internet to spread open on my screen
Island words for a shadow clear sea
Woke up at 3 to bring myself in
From the shelter of the stars and the whisper-woven wind
Daybed turned nightbed turned
Starbed fronds of Milky Way
Seen again for the first time
Though it’s not like I went anywhere in the in-between.
Dorothy Kigen is a 31-year-old female-identifying Kenyan with a sensible day job and a life-long love of the written word. Years of intermittent writing have left a trail of her blog posts, timelines, and at least one niche Tumblr scattered across the Internet. She intends to consolidate what can be salvaged into a manuscript. Her interests include feminism, literature, and pop culture.