Thanks for visiting my blog. This blog chronicles a mostly 4-year journey of love, life, and loss. It's now time to retire. However, feel free to browse and read through the posts.
My current work/projects can be accessed at www.miriamjerotich.com

Friday, February 21, 2014

If I should live my life again

If I should live my life again
Be born in the hospital of fallen soldiers
In the skin with a caramel hue
If I should run away from the crazy man of Jokam
And have only one photo of a past I cannot remember
Still I would choose you.

If I should go back to that stretch of wilted grass
Sit on a rock under the sun in a green winter coat
Braid the Barbie doll and cook up mud ugali
If I should cry because they wouldn’t play with me
And not know yet how much you love me
Still I would choose you.

If I should find myself in class five
Have mum go to theater for the mistakes of a past doctor
Want nothing more than to be number one to make her heal
If Mark should tell me “this is your last warning”
And the girls call me black mamba
Still I would choose you.

If I should attend the high school that walks in the light
Feel that I could finally find the light to start this life anew
Find friends to give me attention – yes, not yet knowing how much you love me
If I should spend the nights hidden from the weight of the world
And have “wrong motives” that make me seek your hand rather than your face
Still I would choose you.

If I should cross the oceans to search for knowledge
Worry that I would fail, that it wouldn’t be worth it
That I should have stayed and studied something sensible like law
If they should call home “a poverty-stricken war-ridden country”
And our black skin the dearth of all mankind
Still I would choose you.

If I should be here, in this moment, now
If I should live this life again
Through the memories that I do remember
And the thoughts I consider when I thank you that I am twenty-three
If I should think about the photo Mum sent me:
The egg among the whistling thorns -
The “competition between the writer Jero and her clever mother”
Still I would choose you.

The clever Mother has already won -
She taught me to choose you.

You.
The strength that keeps me from falling.
Yes, still, I would choose you.






The prompt of this prose, from my mother, was:
 "Have a look at this egg amongst the whistling thorns. Relate to our spiritual journey,our protection from all harm by God. Think outside the box and let us see what story you can make out of this. It is competition between the writer Jero and her clever mother."