I put tulips under the pillows and set fire to the house

I thought it would be poetic - even if nobody would ever know. As if the smell of tulips would rage with the fire and burn with the memories of all the gifts he gave me and all the things he wanted me to be - that I wasn't.

But there was no aroma of tulips with the fire. They wilted in seconds the way plots of revenge sound stupid when spoken out loud.

With every affair, I thought I could erase him - bury him under new lovers and new memories. But he wouldn't go! He became even more present, like the lovers were embodying different aspects of him. Death by fire seemed to be the only way.

And so the fantasy became a reality, became a bonafide plot.

The timing was perfect and unsuspecting. We would eat, we would drink, we would talk like there was a tomorrow. And then as they rested with their bellies full and their minds at ease, I would light his tulips, I would light them all.

[So this was a writing exercise in which you pick three sentences several minutes after one another and write for five minutes before you pick a new sentence/writing prompt. The sentences/writing prompts were as follows:
- I put tulips under all the pillows and then set fire to the house
- I cheated on my spouse and it wasn't the first time
- The time he invited his mother to come to dinner]

becoming her

I am haunted by the idea of becoming
that woman in the narrow streets
with her billowing buibui 
and kohl lined eyes
who reveals more with her painted face
than she intends to hide

I am haunted by the promise of loss
where after years of devotion
you would take another
with lustre in her hair
and skin which is not marked by the passing of children
A child cum woman
to consume the desire you once had for me
the beauty I once kept for you
but now cannot keep from slipping away

She is your mother and grandmother and the wife
of every man who wants another

And I do not know whether you will become your father
or grandfather or every man with a wife or two
who still wants another

male justice

they descended on her like dogs let loose
from a cage they normally cannot leave
on prey they normally cannot touch
at least in the day
at least in public

they tore at her with so much vigour
it seemed they really believed
they could take from her
what had been taken from them
as if this were a way they could be remembered
by a world that had forgotten them

transposing their grievances
onto a woman whose blatant agency
spoke too loudly about their own lack

they swarmed around her
- a sea of beasts

taking clothes for dignity
privacy for power

being men who do not know how to be men
teaching a woman how to be a woman

http://thekenyanoline.com/this-is-yet-another-obnoxious-incident-that-happened-rape-in-public-in-nairobi%E2%80%BC%E2%80%BC%E2%80%BC/