When Dryness Took Root: Poem by Linus Kithinji Njeru

This is no plea for mediation or return.
This is a soul laid bare, a candle burn'd.
Not to seek balm for wounds already deep,
But to awaken hearts that silent weep.

The Wounds That Broke the Roof, Not the Walls
From outside, ours seemed a tale well-spun:
A wedding, children, smiles under the sun.
Yet inside, the house was not a home,
But bricks of silence bound with weary stone.

I am a man who:

Fell short of what they call 'the family head, '
Whose hands brought little, and whose heart felt dead.

Knew not how to woo or wisely raise
A home where love and peace would dwell always.

Lagged behind in life's swift-moving race,
A tortoise scorned for lack of worldly pace.

These faults, oft whispered, sometimes flung with scorn,
Like thistles pierced the flesh from dusk till morn.

Of Dryness and Distance
I lived within a dry and brittle bed,
Where love once dwelt but soon its fragrance fled.
No laughter sang from chambers where we lay,
Just cold goodnights that stole our warmth away.

Twelve times or less each year we met as one,
While hearts stayed locked beneath a loveless sun.

"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith."
— Proverbs 15: 17

I felt a ghost — not father, husband, man.
A faint echo in a hollowed-out clan.
The world we built was polished for the show,
Yet underneath, no fruit was left to grow.

My Roots: Grown from Drought and Dust
Born of a humble, wandering line,
My father bore no land nor steady spine.
His father's death robbed him of all he owned,
And uncles carved his birthright to the bone.

We moved like reeds upon a restless stream,
And schooling was a half-remembered dream.

Yet by God's grace, I broke through the mold:
The first to wear a gown of scholar's gold.
It was no feast; the journey thorned and steep,
Each page I read was bought with nights of sleep.

I rose and sought to lift my kin with pride,
But found my strength was quickly swept aside.
For every step ahead, two debts would grow—
And hopes would rise just as my funds ran low.

Marriage: A Fire Lit Too Soon
I longed for warmth—not fire, but gentle light,
A woman's touch to make the cold feel right.
Not riches, but a heart that beat in rhyme,
To weather storms and dance through years and time.

She came, and seemed the answer to my prayer,
But clouds soon formed within our open air.
Even before our vows were fully cast,
Her eyes were drawn to shadows of the past.

She paid the dowry with a tender hand,
Yet each coin rang like guilt I couldn't stand.
We lived apart in flesh and thought and bed,
And intimacy, like leaves in winter, fled.

"Sex, " said the wise, "is wrought within the mind."
And I, too blind, sought cures I'd never find.

Now I Understand Why My Father Was Silent
"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." — Shakespeare, Henry IV

When I was but a boy of tender frame,
I watched my father, silent, without shame.
He'd stagger in from battlefields unseen,
No smile, no jest, no tale of where he'd been.

I thought him stern, aloof, and out of place,
But now I see the weight behind his face.

He was broke, yet tears he could not show.
He was sick, but rest was his foe.
He was weary, yet stood like an oak—
Because a father's grief must never be spoke.

"Men do not cry, they bleed behind the veil;
Their pain is penned in silence, never wail."

The world is brutal to the man who fails—
No comfort waits when courage finally pales.
To fall is shame, to break is to betray,
So we bear burdens none should ever weigh.

Now that I'm grown, I see him clear.
He fought for us through hunger, doubt, and fear.
He sold his dreams to build us skies of blue—
He died a little so we might live true.