faster than the speed of night

Things that take 15 minutes: from home (Mumias) to the next town at 60MPH; Wilco's Less Than You Think; cooking Santa Lucia spaghetti; Martin Luther King, Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech; Andy Warhol's record-setting auction at Christie's; a half-litre tub of ice cream to completely melt at room temperature. Short-lived, fleeting fame is called 15 minutes of fame. It also takes 15 minutes for hijackers to completely clean you out when they jack your car at end month, depending on how far from the bank you live. A friend of mine was jacked last week, and it happened to her exactly that way. They took her just as she was driving into their compound (it seems the watchman let them in) and suddenly she sees two people one with a gun. They get in, drive off with her, first to the bank to get all her cash, then they wait till next day to get the rest, then they went with her very far from town and left her by the streets and went with her car. Because this was week 1, plus the week after Easter weekend, you need to understand that when I say they took everything I mean literally everything. None of her bills was paid, her shopping wasn't done, and she hadn't even paid the rent.

Then the most amazing thing happened - she mentioned it to one or two of her closest friends in the office (and told me too somehow - I have those like large ears and I ask questions) and then it spread through the grapevine, and all of a sudden there was all these people stepping up offering to help. You know, giving cash, in kind, whatever. Everyone was so nice and helpful, right from her landlady giving her an extension on the rent. She never even had to ask, guys were just volunteering. Plus the cops actually found her car in a day. I happened to be with her when she was receiving part of the cash, and I remember exclaiming "Wow, you've got a strong support group!" And I really did think so. Our setup is sort of like a school in the sense that every year they hire many new people so we have lots based on year hired so people are obviously closer with guys their own lot, and she's from the lot two years ahead of mine (but we're still friends) so I may have assumed her lot have organized themselves into a sort of chamma or something and that's where all that stuff is coming from.

What I didn't realise, was that there was no such thing. They were just people helping out another person because they could. Turns out that so called "support group" was really just people like me. So I finally looked for her and asked how I could be of help, and I felt much better after that. All day yesterday I was actually beating myself up over having not gotten it sooner. See I grew up self-sufficient, so while I'm not overly stingy, if someone doesn't ask for something I just go ahead and assume it's coz they don't need it so I don't offer. Or at least I used not to. I'm getting better but some situations clearly still fall through the cracks. She was telling me that thing just started as a joke and she's such a good sport so she was laughing with everyone about it like a day after it happened. She could not have thought the guys were actually being serious until the stuff started trickling in. And I was like, ya, people can surprise you that way sometimes. Truth is, they surprised even me. Human beings have an unyielding capacity for love. Maybe not all of us have, but those that do inspire those of us who don't. And I can only hope that one day I'll reach that place where I'll actually be the one coming up with the initiatives. Where reaching out to a soul in need will be more instinct than the product of prodding and conscience-beating. I heard this as a voiceover on Grey's once, long ago when I was still in school: No matter how hard we try, no matter how much we fight, we fall sometimes. But there's an upside to falling - it's the chance we give our friends to catch us.

END

echoes, silence, patience & grace

Day three of yet another power cut. Darkness all over, silence, nothing to do, no one to talk to. Just me and the music. Exactly how I'm used to it being. Do you believe in fate, and destiny? How much of our future can we control? Do you ever wonder how long it takes to change your life, what measure of time is sufficient to be life-altering? Two weeks? A month? An hour? The entire lifetime?

I discovered a building the other day, called Liaison House. I'm gonna remember that name, because there's a company there that I have now added to the other place I'd kill to work in. A friend of mine apparently works there, so that's how I found out things about it: the way they start you off at six times my salary, the kinds of people you get to meet, the exposure to cutting edge technology, travelling all over, no bosses breathing down your neck as long as you deliver, autonomy, open-ended corporate culture, and most of all, the name. You tell people you're from Hewlett-Packard and they shut up and pay attention - you're someone they probably wanna listen to.

I fear, though, that this might turn out to be one of those dreams that sometimes feel really distant, because if a company has only 23 employees, all high-flyers, then you need to be pretty exemplary to get in, right? That can't possibly be for ordinary menfolk like myself, can it? Then there's those other times when I think, why not people like me? What makes them better? "People like me..." What does that even mean anyway? Human nature says when we're apprehensive like that we need someone to stand behind us, and tell us they'll be there to catch us when we fall. A still small voice that tells us we can do it, that we're more than capable. We're made that way, I guess, and that must be why [soccer] teams playing at home rarely lose - coz there's all these people cheering them on and making them feel like they're superman.

The butterfly effect is a concept from chaos theory that goes something like small variations in the initial conditions in a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system [I know, I didn't get any of that either! :)] Basially, a butterfly flaps it's wings in China and through a cascade of chain reactions, the little breeze it created keeps getting stronger till at the other end of the Atlantic a tornado results. Life seems to be all interconnected that way, where no action exists in a vacuum. And so you gotta believe that everything you do here matters, that someday you'll land on something better, something found beyond the quiet persistence of a dream. And that later on, in the grand scheme of things, when you're looking back you'll know: it turned out the way it did because you took the chance when you did.

Companionship. Life often comes rushing at us from out of the darkness. Suddenly. When it does, is there someone in your life you're gonna be able to count on, lean on? Someone who will watch over you when you stumble and fall? And in that moment, give you the strength to face your fears alone?

END

taking back sunday

Back in the day when I was still in school, I remember Sunday used to really be a day of rest. I'd wake up early in the morning, be in church by 8, if I was on rotation for worship team that day I'd probably have to stay till 12, then go to school and hang out in my room or out in the sun and do nothing till it got dark or people started coming back. I was in one of those schools that's really tucked away in the forest (read built-in-the-countryside) so all those people who stayed in Nairobi used to vamoose all weekend or go hang out in town or wherever, basically anywhere other than there. Me, I made lemonade with the lemons I got - I took the time to reconnect with nature, which as it happened was aplenty all around us... [although the fact that home was too far for me to go for breaks shorter than 3 weeks coz I'd spend like a week on the road helped]. See that way when I started the week next Monday at 11am [wat! my course wasn't as involving as it should have been!] I was completely rejuvenated. Monday didn't even use to feel like Monday.

But not these days. First working is a world away from school, coz 8 working hours really means 8 hours plus nights and weekends, so you have no free time to recuperate over the week. Then now the Sundays are no longer my own. If it's not work, or a concert I have to attend in support, or a long lost friend I have to see, or get my hair cut, or travel, then there's gonna be no power and so I'll spend the whole day obsessing over that and checking if it's come back. I swear, the only difference between Sundays and other days is the way I dress. Even a simple lunch with the mother [she happened to be in town today so] takes up the entire day - so many grown up things to discuss: mortgages, bank loans, investments, digital cameras, the economy...ok, not really :) So now at the end of the day you're so tired you can't even lift a finger, then you realize you'd just gotten The Freedom Writers over the week and today is when you were supposed to watch it, and coz the power situation is unpredictable I gotta get ready (= iron clad) for the whole week ahead just in case. As if that's not enough, you're realising all this at 10.30 so there's the whole early to bed and early to rise thing that you've also gotta get around to.

{{sigh}} when did it all get so crammed up?? I never actually thought the schedule would ever be as free as uni again, but I didn't think it would get this bad either. I need to bring back me-time. And not those late nights, actual me-time. Sunday afternoon. Sipping margaritas (or apple juice). Listening to neo soul or acoustic rock (seeing as I have this home theater I never really get to enjoy). Watching those old daytime series I used to be crazy about (Ed, 7th Heaven, Jack and Jill, Dawson's Creek, Charmed, Everwood...) or Mariah Carey's and Trump's True Hollywood Stories, or the deep moving black family movies that rocked the 90's - Set It Off, Soul Food, Brown Sugar, The Best Man, Waiting to Exhale, Boyz in the Hood. Learning guitar. Not having a splitting headache. All the things I never get to do since I started working. And that I probably won't get to do this coming weekend coz one of us in my inner circle has a birthday then. It always turns out to be fun with those guys so I'm staying positive about that one, but after that...

END

holding out for a hero

So I got The West Wing DVD's, finally. Just 4 seasons, but still, I've been looking for it all my life so I'll take those and run. As I was watching it, it struck me just why I loved the show so much: I know it's just a TV show and that it's not as close to Real Life(TM) as I'd like it to be, but there's leadership that's leadership on that show. The kind of president who cares when and ex-marine pilot who was flying in to see him dies in a plane crash; who's bothered when Indian Troops move in on Pakistan making less-than-friendly overtures; who calls his Navy SEALs when there's a hurricane heading their way that they possibly might not be able to escape just to check in on them; who, before filling a supreme court justice position, vets the prospective candidate, and actually gives up a slum dunk nomination that would have helped his cause politically just because it's come up that the guy doesn't believe in an inherent right to privacy; a president with a Nobel prize in Economics who when he stands to speak, you can tell.

A white house chief of staff who won't let any of his minions publicly defend him when a scandal's about to come out about him so that if he doesn't survive, he doesn't take anyone else down with him, and the kind of minions who'd wanna take the fall for their chief of staff because they believe enough in him to know that if it was them on the line, he'd spare no expense to defend and clear them. A communications director who, when he randomly discovers that a war veteran died and was not treated like the hero he was, went against the code and used to president's name to arrange a guard of honor for the dead guy, a guy he didn't know, never even met, but did that just because he recognized what (crucial) part that person played in the larger American picture; someone who knows what books Oscar and Hammersmith (or was that Hammerstein) wrote. A press secretary who won't go to the press briefing and lie to those reporters point blank just because that's what she was told to do.

When you think about it, isn't that the kind of leaders we want? An administration that believes in what they're doing, and that deep down really wanna make people's lives better. And not just people they know directly, the entire electorate. People who believe in the system and don't wanna override it for personal gain, people who, asides from an urge to change the lives of their electorate, actually have the psychological wherewithal to do it. Our president has a Masters degree in Economics, from the London School of Economics no less, but I swear, you would not be thought outlandish if you assumed after observing him for 2 days that he probably didn't go all the way through high school. It's not just that he can't see past his nose (or maybe he can, just not where everyone else is concerned), it's how out of touch he is with the ground realities, the kinds of decisions he makes, the things he says when he's reading out of a prepared speech. It's the way all of them relate with each other, always bickering in the news about small non-consequential things like who wasn't consulted before a big decision was made and who between the VP and PM reports to the other etc. We listen and we laugh, but then later on, I sit and I think about it and want nothing to do with my own country. People are supposed to inherently have a soft spot for the land of their heritage. "Vergess nicht dein Herkunft," goes that German saying (do not forget where you came from, loosely translated). But I can't say I share in that sentiment. Not with the kind of leaders (I'm gonna say I use that word loosely) we have and are going to continue having for the foreseeable future. I suppose our day is coming, when we shall have a president who's a president. But that's probably one of those things I'll believe when I see.

In one of the scenes at the end of the first season, the president got shot. He recovered, but that news wasn't made immediately available to the public. That very night, outside the hospital where he was being treated, a vigil began - thousands of people gathered out there, saying a prayer for their dearly beloved, showing support, hoping their hero makes it through. Honestly, I don't see myself doing that for my president, but maybe that's just me (lemme not speak as though I'm speaking for the country). There's a bit I once read in Sun Tzu's The Art of War, about how to treat people who work under you (like everything else in the book this assumes the setup of an army commander and his soldiers): Regard your soldiers as your children, and they will follow you into the deepest valley. Look upon them as your own beloved sons, and they will stand by you even unto death.

END

mistakes we knew we were making

I have just spent the whole day listening to the same song over and over again - Lifeline, by Angels and Airwaves. It was supposed to be a working day so I showed up but apparently no one else did (it's like I'm the only one who's committed to the firm!) so I cranked up the ipod and for some reason I just couldn't bring myself to move from that song. It's made think about a lot of little missteps I made growing up, most of them really petty and childish. Well, in my defence, I was a child. And if there's one problem I've always had, it's speaking before I think and saying things I don't really mean. It's usually all a joke to me, but my particular brand of comedy is apparently an acquired taste.

I remember there was this one time it was I think one of those holidays around end of year, and it was Saturday so everyone was home, and then my mum just walks in and tells us all we're going to eat out. I was overjoyed! I think I was born with a craving for fast food. So gleefully me and kina my brothers dress up and off we go. And then shock on us - turns out it wasn't a hotel, like, you know, the Hilton or anything. It was actually a shanty. Deep inside the small town that was our home. My immediate reaction, and I believed I was speaking for everyone when I said this, was something to the tune of "You must be crazy if you think we're going to eat in a place like that." Of course my mum pulled rank and forced us on, and when we got closer I saw that a few of my friends from school were actually in there eating and my mind took an absolute 180. I was like this place rocks! Let's go eat. She noticed the reason I'd changed my mind, and I noticed the implication. I was young, but old enough that I could tell when I'd disappointed my mother (about 13). It wasn't so much that when it was her taking me there I said no, it was more that when I saw my friends eat there I decided it must be ok. I believe that was my first real snobbish act, and needless to say it haunted me for quite a while. Up until then I was the guy for whom peer pressure had only been a topic in Home Science class, things you read coz you have to make it into Starehe. I've always been the perceptive kind, so I could definitely tell she thought less of me in that moment. As far as boo boos in my childhood go, that was pretty much as big as it got. It's actually a big part of the reason I try so hard to not get influenced by anyone into doing things I wouldn't normally do, that look in her eyes, so yes, it did make me a better person.

I remember also a time now in high school when I don't remember why, but we were having an argument, still with my mum. It must have been about food, coz I remember the subject of breakfast came up, and I blurted out, "It's just three slices of bread, and the stomach's still the same size it was when we ate three heapings of rice last night, so don't think that breakfast even does that much to satisfy us! It's not like if I didn't have it I'd suddenly drop down and die of hunger," or something to that tune. And again, I could tell straight away that was something I shouldn't have said. But this time she didn't spare me, she actually told me off, and told me it was time I started thinking before I spoke, and the people actually did have feelings and all that crap. It was a long talk, that one! Whew! And she used to teach English in a past life so she has this really rich language set that she resorts to when she's mad, so suffice it to say by the end of that talk I was that much better at English, coz I always note new words when I meet them. I managed to figure the error of my ways in both cases - one she'd jitolead to take us out and here we were acting like ingrateful littel brats, and in the second case she'd jitolead to provide us three square meals a day breakfast being the first one and here I was acting like, well, an ingrateful little brat.

Then there was that time when we were in NYC and we're in the subway and I have the camcorder capturing the scenes and all, then I notice that one of the girls we were with had held onto this really sweet little black kid who happened to be sitting next to her and they were posing for a photo and laughing and generally connecting, then I zone in me and my camera, shoot a few minutes of that mush-fest and then just out of nowhere I blurt out, "Nancy (that was her name) how do you spell sodomy?" Of course, being the guy with the camera, all eyes were on me, a situation that was less-than-ideal given the circumstances. WHAT!! Ya, that was definitely not one of my finer moments. I cannot believe I actually said that in a subway-full of people in America! I honestly meant it as a joke, but really, the way to hell is paved with good intentions, so they say. One of my other pals reprimanded me and at that moment I started to wonder why it is the ground never opens up to swallow errant people like we read about in all those good books.

I used to play video games a lot growing up. Still do, just a little less, and more console than PC. But anyway, it follows that when this friend of mine was having a problem with his, he turned to me for help. Do I have any ideas, he asked? Of course I did, why wouldn't I? I'm the guy who always has something to say. "Grow up, get a real job and stop playing computer games," said I. Turns out he didn't quite find it funny, if the really long message about his life that he sent back to me was anything to go by. Or that time in first year that I sat down right opposite a really self-concious chic who I knew was self concious but still asked her straight on, "Are you cross-eyed?" with a certain inflection that she found not so flattering. She was, but I must be pretty good at apologising, coz we were actually like best friends all thro uni.

I guess I'm one of those people who's eternally grateful that the concept of second chances was invented. Coz if it hadn't I can't imagine how many bridges I'd have burned by now. I'm also one of those people who talks really fast so it really does I appear like I talk before I think, but in reality sometimes that's just the excuse I hide behind, coz truth is like everyone else I do think faster than I speak. But I really do make an intentional effort to learn from my mistakes, things I can and things I can't say at least.

But I make no apologies for how I am. In fact, if there's anything I wanna be able to apply the same principle to the rest of my life. I like fantisizing that were I ever in a boardroom I'm not going to be one of those people that gets plagued by analysis paralysis. If a decision needs to be made it's gonna be made now. I mean, if there's no new information coming in then just as well now as next week, right? I'll be a happy guy if I end up that kind of person. Yes I'll probably make a lot of mistakes, but an opportunity is never going to pass me by just because I didn't react fast enough. There's an ad guy who used to run his father's company, Deutsch, Inc, and then sold it to IPG called Donny Deutsch. He had the most outrageous methods of doing things, but he did raise up their enterprise to the top 10 ad agency list, so he must have been doing something right. This is what someone else said about him when reviewing his auto-bio, "Deutsch has been enormously successful in building a top-ranked advertising organization - and empire. Two things impressed me in a positive way as my mental Polaroid image of Deutsch finally took on full color and clarity. First, he risks, and because he risks, he wins more often than he loses. Second, he values his people, and places them in positions to win." Imagine that - he risks, and because he risks, he wins more often than he loses. I want that to be me. If in 20 years I can say that about myself, then my work here will be done. Of course, not surprisingly, Deutsch's book is called Often Wrong, Never In Doubt.

END

searching for a former clarity

What does a guy do when he suddenly wakes up one morning and realises that his life isn't going the way it was supposed to five years ago when he dreamt it all up? Or that he's so far off the course he'd set for himself it's like he's become a totally different person altogether? When he can no longer see it as being even within the realm of possibility? Does he sit down and dream again a dream less lofty than the other one? Or does he soldier on, always believing that if it was possible once it could be possible again? It's the age old question - when does it stop being perseverance and determination and become stupidity? How many times should one try before they realise it's a lost cause, and they need to find a different course to follow? If you can answer that question, then you're smarter than I am, coz I've been thinking about it alot, and I still don't get it. Say I have this friend, who got a job once that he thought was what he needed to get him launched on the path to glory, and then with time came to start feeling that he was merely wasting himself, and that where rubber meets the road the place he was at was nothing like he thought it was going to be. Now it's not a completely lost cause, it's really all just about differences between him and the leadership at that place, nothing physically inhibitive. So if he tried and waited long enough, maybe they could change, and he'd become happier. But say he's tried it and thinks it'll take too long for that to happen, and the he might burn out earlier than that time. So he'd rather just call it quits and go back to the drawing board, see if it's really true when one door closes another one opens. He's got me thinking. Im wondering if I'd have the fortitude to just take the plunge like that. Comfort is a feeling of freedom from worry and disappointment, so I guess that's why they call where you are right now and are afraid to leave a "comfort zone". Worry and disappointment are all the things associated with taking risks, which happens to be the one thing you have to leave the comfort zone to do. This guy says he wants control over what he does, and what he earns. They say the higher the risk the greater the returns. But mostly the thing they don't tell you is that they mean at the stock market, not really out in the real world where the difference between success and failure is you having a hot plate in the evening and sleeping out in the rain. And also that the higher the risk the higher the price you pay, so really those higher returns, whatever they may be, have been earned, right?

So anyway my friend's jumping into the deep end, with both feet. These are the people who make us start thinking. He got a deal, he found it raw, and instead of just sucking up and compromising like most of would have (I think yours truly included, up to a certain level), he's walking away and looking elsewhere. It's pretty amazing, how much people can do if they look deep enough within themselves. In a country like the one we're leaving in I know at least 20 people who'd call you a fool for leaving a job, ANY kind of job. They'd say how it's better than nothing, and how maybe that's where God wants you to start, and how there's a million other people out there with the same degree who dint get the chance you got, however paltry, and so you should put up or shut up, and be grateful, and quit your whining and go back to work. So you had dreams about something different, well face it, it's called life! Dreams don't come easy. No pain no gain. You know, the works! But there's another side to all this. "Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate; our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us." I wanna be that guy who can stand up and say enough is enough, because I think inasmuch as situtations make you complacent they're not necessarily better than nothing. "Nothing", if nothing else (excuse the pun), is a strong motivator. When push comes to shove we always manage to step up to the plate. At the precipice, there's nothing man cannot do. The problem is usually getting ourselves to that point. And unless we're there we're never really gonna improve ourselves.

There are moments in our lives when we find ourselves at a crossroads; afraid, confused, without a roadmap. The choices we make in those moments will define us for the rest of our days. Of course, when faced with the unknown, most of us prefer to turn around and go back. But every once in a while people push onto something better. Something found just beyond the pain of doing it alone, and just beyond the bravery and courage it takes to pick up and start over again, for no reason other than the fact that you're not happy where you are. Something beyond the quiet persistence of a dream. Because it's only when you're tested that you discover who you truly are. And it's only when you're tested that you discover who you can be. The person you want to be does exist, somewhere on the other side of hard work, faith and belief. And beyond the heartache and the fear of what lies ahead.

END

party like a rockstar

I have found out something about myself today - I need to become a rockstar. I KNOW! Weird, especially for someone like me - coz that will involve so many things, like get voice surgery (does that exist?), but wait - Steven Tyler did pretty well for himself with that frog-like voice... so scratch voice surgery. I need to become a few shades lighter, learn how to dance(!!!), acquire stage presence (where do they sell that, anyone?), and most of all, LEARN GUITAR! For the longest time I've been telling myself Im gonna learn how to play the guitar. And I've never followed through. Guess that's my white unicorn. That and the Beamer, of course :) See I was at a rock concert earlier today. My very first one - live music at least. BOY! did those guys bring it! It was like, just when you think it can't get louder they drop a hit you know and then the guitarist gets on top of the amp and starts playing a riff like you haven't heard before, and then the lead singer jumps and the drummer comes down on them bad boys HARD! Then the bassist pauses for ever so long and it's all silent except for the keyboard, and then just when you heart rate's coming back to normal it all begins again. WOW! That, my friends, is power. The music was literally flowing through my veins, coz I think at some point I just totally got immersed in all of it and it's like I wasn't just listening through the ears any more. Granted, I have two left feet so I can't really do that whole jump up and prance about and shake my head thing, but I felt the music. I felt it like I don't think I ever have before. And funny story - Im not even a fan of Jars of Clay (that's who was playing). I just generally like rock and it sounded like it was going to happen. But now Im definitely a fan! Im diggin up all their old albums as soon as I get time!

That's a paradigm shift, if you ever heard of one. I love audit as much as you can love something that takes over your whole life and turns it into a mass of aching bones and ringing phones and alarms that never end, but I suspect that career is a tad less interesting than being a rockstar. I mean come on, planes, tour buses, screaming fans, groupies, free drinks, groupies, fast cars and hot houses, groupies... what's not to like? Anyway, I also dislike the loneliness, and I hear as a rockstar Im gonna be willing to even pay just to have some time on my own. And I can throw tantrums whenever the record label starts giving me grief about the I donno deadlines, and I can tell them where they can stick then go bang myself in the changing room and everyone will just leave me alone, then they'll come apologize later for working me up and talk to me kindly about the aforementioned deadline and ask me what time would be convenient for me. I mean, of course I signed a contract, but no one would dare remind me about that one at a time like that, coz I'd be the face of their outfit, and I'd let them know they need me more than I need them. I'd be drama queen number one - complete with the mascara and lip gloss.

And is it just me or are rockstars always throwing or attending parties! I don't like parties much myself, but I guess I could be convinced. What's the alternative - financial statements? Nah, I could definitely be convinced. It's like they get paid to be awesome, and to lead this awesome life us people just dream about. (all that and the stupid people go and OD on drugs, trynna achieve escape from that whole glamorous life of fortune and fame that's so hard to bear! wtf??) Well I want it all. I wanna be able to walk into a showroom and have the manager clamouring to let me drive one of his cars, as long as I let him tell people I drive it. "You won't even have to pay for it, just take a picture with me." I want to wake up on a Monday morning and load up the Xbox and play Halo 3. I want body guards to beat up all those a***s I'm constantly running into. I want fame. I want a label credit card with no limit. I want to be able to wear shades inside a building at night and still make people go "Hey, that's cool. Why haven't I ever tried that before?" And then when I've done all that I wanna launch my own line of cologne. Pour Homme, of course. Maybe star in a movie or two. And have a biography written about me. Definitely have a biography. Then retire to a cool no-frills life (well, in this country, at least) in politics, not using up any of the money I'll have amassed over the years, so the rest of my family never has to work again. I want all these things, and then some.

But, well tomorrow's Monday again. Im gonna be woken up by those incessant alarms, and Im gonna dress in those (pretty cool, actually) drab suits and go to my never-ending job, and Im still going to be grateful for it all. And the pipe dreams, well

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Ask me in about ten years.

END