Birthdays are for Losers

 President William Ruto walks through the corridors of power, perhaps believing he has friends among those who sit at his table. But in the depths of his mind, where ambitions clash with trust, he may have already buried most of them—alongside his fading conscience. To stay ahead in a game where loyalty is currency and betrayal comes cheap, he uses them as pawns, moving each piece with cold precision. In the stillness of late nights, when the echoes of strategy fade, perhaps the weight of these silent funerals lingers. After all, it's not just friends he's sacrificed but fragments of his own humanity, sealed away in graves no one dares to acknowledge.

                                                           ….

There’s a heaviness that lingers when I think of the people I've called friends. Like ghosts, their laughter echoes faintly in my mind, but when they reach out, there's only silence. I wonder if I was the reason people drift away — if my words, my absence, or my inability to hold on tightly enough made them disappear. It feels like I killed something sacred, something that was supposed to last, and now I carry the guilt like a weight I can't shake off. Even with those who remain, there's this gnawing fear that I’m already writing their exit.

I often replay moments in my head, trying to find the exact second it all started to crumble. I have asked myself so many questions, interrogated myself and maybe, maybe, I should have asked my friends those questions. For a fact, the inner child is gone, that one part that made friends, now I make moments. “You have to understand this, being friendly doesn’t mean you are making friends” still contemplating. Or maybe it’s a ‘demon’ because it’s always a common theme, one might say it’s a cliché but…

When life made me too tired to care, I always gave up. God should be tired by now. So here is a short story, my first year in campus school, I asked God for friends. He kept me on hold for a second then he answered in text, what about the ones you have? Are you really sure you will be ok with it? I didn’t reply. And for a long time I though He was pissed.

What haunts me most is the realization that friendship is fragile—like glass, beautiful until it shatters. I watch the cracks form in the relationships I still have, terrified that I’ll be the reason we fall apart. It’s a lonely kind of guilt, one that whispers in the quiet moments: You don’t deserve this love. You’ll ruin it just like before. But deep down, it is the hope that always kills me. I pray for my friends; I love my friends so much but sometimes my insecurities are a constant reminder to cut ties. It’s not normal for your friend to ask you umepotelelea wapi or Na umepotea sana or Umeficha white. It is always a constant reminder to check up on friends because of you love them or just ignore the white noise right?

At the back of my mind, I killed a lot of 'friends' and buried them with my inner child. Each grave marked the end of trust shattered, affection drained by indifference, and loyalty dismissed by convenience. In their place, I built walls fortified with bitterness and silence, shielding a heart that once knew boundless innocence. My inner child—bright-eyed, hopeful, and forgiving—was the first casualty, laid to rest beside the friendships I couldn't salvage. Now, echoes of laughter that once filled my world are nothing more than whispers of ghosts I no longer acknowledge. I've mourned them quietly, in solitude, carrying the weight of funerals no one else attended.