The Last Tear Drop.

Title: The Last Teardrop Author: Bunguswa Brian.

The Fall

The air that morning carried the heaviness of things unsaid. The jacaranda trees along the pathway to Nyumbani University bloomed purple, oblivious to the storm brewing in Brian’s life. He wore his best shirt, the one Sharon had ironed for him weeks before. That morning he had rehearsed a few lines for a poem about resilience—never knowing he’d need them more than ever.

As he approached the Literature Department, the murmurs of two guards sliced through the breeze. "Are you Bunguswa Brian?"

"Yes," he answered, trying to smile.

"You are required at the Dean's Office immediately. There’s a matter that needs urgent attention."

He followed them in confusion. When he entered the office, the air turned cold. A panel of four people stared at him: the Dean, a faculty representative, and two unfamiliar administrators. A printed paper lay on the table.

"Mr. Bunguswa, it has come to our attention that you were involved in the leakage of the second-year Literature exam. You are also accused of inciting students to protest against departmental decisions."

He blinked. "That’s not true. I have nothing to do with—"

"You are hereby suspended with immediate effect pending full investigation. Your access to university property is revoked. You are expected to vacate the hostels within 24 hours."

It was like the air had been punched out of his lungs. How? Who? He thought of all his hard work, his long nights preparing for exams, the handwritten poems stuck between the pages of his class notes.

That night, he slept in a bus park. Sharon didn’t pick up his calls. His inbox was filled with gossip and pity.

“When falsehood wraps itself in gowns of truth, It takes silence to be labeled a liar. And when love does not pick your calls, You are left dialing memory.”

Shauri Moyo

Shauri Moyo was not where dreams were born. It was where they came to hide. The people there lived without the burden of pretense. Brian found refuge in a corridor behind an old metal workshop. By day, it clanged with noise. By night, it was quiet, save for the whispers of wind and homeless souls who, like him, counted the stars as a way of measuring time.

He woke every morning to the scent of dust and frying chapati. He bathed from a plastic basin, ate when he could, and made acquaintances with street children who taught him how to hustle. He carried water, washed cars, and sold pirated novels at Gikomba.

But at night, under a dim bulb he fixed using borrowed wires, Brian wrote. Not fiction. Not class essays. But raw, gut-wrenching poetry.

The Name in My Ribcage

I

She left me without a final breath,

No letter inked with fading grace,

A ghost she turned, more kind than death,

But cruel in her silent pace.

I watched the dusk dissolve her name,

As dreams collapsed in smoke and flame—

Yet still I sought her face.

II

She married while my exile bled,

While streetlights blinked in broken code.

Her vows were said as mine were shred,

Her footsteps found a gilded road.

I kissed my hunger like a hymn,

While hope grew thin, and light grew dim—

And pain became abode.

III

Yet Sharonita haunts my ribs,

Her syllables, like sacred dust,

Still echo through my midnight scribs,

Though dreams have long begun to rust.

I try to cage her voice in ink,

But every line begins to sink—

And bleed with shattered trust.

IV

I carved her name on carton sheets,

Beside the streetboys fast asleep.

Their lullabies were car-horn beats,

Their dreams were thin, their losses deep.

And as I wept where alleys bend,

Her memory refused to end—

A fire I could not keep.

V

She smiled in wedding veils of light,

While I wore jackets stitched in dust.

She walked through roses, wrapped in white,

While I stitched verses out of rust.

Her laughter rang from distant doors,

While I stayed lost on corridor floors—

A poet clothed in trust.

VI

My ribs still ache where she resides,

An unseen tenant in my chest.

She writes regret in tidal tides

That flood my sleep, deny me rest.

I tried to drown her with a song,

But notes turned bitter all night long—

My wounds would not digest.

VII

The moon, my only witness then,

Would catch me weeping in the shade.

I spoke her name again, again,

In poems I barely dared parade.

But streetlights knew my hidden lines,

The ones I kept between the spines—

Of books I never made.

VIII

I saw her once beyond the gate,

A stranger wrapped in known perfume.

She passed like whispers tied to fate,

And did not look to scan the gloom.

Her ring shone loud, her gaze was still,

And yet my chest betrayed my will—

By beating like a tomb.

IX

Forgive the girl, I often plead,

For she, too, danced with dreams unmet.

Perhaps my silence made her bleed,

Or maybe she just must forget.

But if my ribs could ever speak,

They'd sob her name in every leak—

And drown in their regret.

X

So now I write to set her free,

Not from my verse—but from my ache.

Each line a tear I cease to see,

Each rhyme a breath I dared to take.

Her name may sleep within my chest,

But peace is all I now request—

And silence, for her sake.

He wept many nights. Not because of poverty, but because he’d become invisible to the world he once belonged to. The boy who once quoted Shakespeare in debates now begged for coins to eat.

The Letter

On the 119th day of his exile, as he sat tying sisal ropes at a furniture workshop, a young girl arrived with a dusty envelope.

"You are Brian?"

"Yes."

"Someone said to give you this. It came to the centre."

The envelope bore the logo of Nyumbani University. His hands trembled.

Dear Mr. Bunguswa,

An independent panel has reviewed your case. Evidence confirms your innocence. You are reinstated to resume studies this semester. We deeply regret the inconvenience caused.

He clutched the letter like a miracle. The world blurred. He felt like screaming, dancing, crying all at once. But he did none. He simply sat under the Nairobi sun and let his heart breathe for the first time in months.

"I wrote a poem in tears, But now I write one in silence, For what do you say to a world That finally listened too late?"

Returning to Nyumbani University was like stepping into someone else’s past. The cafeteria now had a digital ordering system. The benches where he used to recite his poems had new names. Most of his former classmates were final-year students—strangers with familiar faces.

Then he saw her.

Sharon.

She walked past him in a floral dress, her hand tucked into a man’s. The gold ring on her finger glinted like betrayal. She did not speak. She did not stop. He felt a thousand questions rise in him, but his tongue stayed still.

He was placed in a new class. No one knew his name, and that was a gift. He attended lectures by day, and by night, he returned to his old habit—writing. But this time, he wrote with purpose.

He started a novel. He titled it: The Last Teardrop.

“I will write my pain into permanence, So no one rewrites my truth. They wrote lies into my name, But I’ll pen poetry into my bones.”

He gave every character in the novel a truth of their own. Sharonita wasn’t just the girl who married someone else. She was the girl who, in her own way, mourned him before he died in exile. Fadhili was based on a street boy who gave Brian his only pair of socks. Professor Tabu resembled the lecturer who sent him notes anonymously even during his suspension.

Brian wrote every night. Even when he had a headache. Even when he missed meals. He swore not to sleep until he wrote a chapter. It wasn’t just a book. It was healing.

One day, while printing a draft, Dr. Wasike saw a few pages.

"Who wrote this?"

"It’s mine," Brian replied.

The lecturer sat down. He read ten pages without blinking.

"This is not just a story. It’s a revolution."

Brian smiled.

"I turned brokenness into chapters, Grief into grammar, And exile into eloquence. Tell them, the suspended boy returned With a pen sharper than injustice."

The last chapter took him weeks. He returned to Shauri Moyo and stood by his old corridor. The metal shop was still there. So was the little boy who used to sell peanuts.

He lit a candle at night, then went back to campus and finished the final lines:

“The last teardrop was not for Sharonita, Nor for the lost days of hunger. It was for the boy who did not give up, For the poet who refused to die silent. This is not a story of sorrow, But of a rising—slow but certain, Like the moonlight over forgotten rooftops.”

When it was done, he printed two copies. One he donated to the university library. One he mailed—without a return address—to Sharon.

Epilogue: Legacy

In the years that followed, Bunguswa Brian became a household name. But that never mattered to him. What mattered was that someone, somewhere, read his words and whispered, “Me too.”

His novel was adapted into a play. His poems were performed at youth festivals. He returned to Shauri Moyo to run writing workshops. And when students faced injustice, they quoted his book like a scripture.

“Let the last teardrop be not of sorrow, But of survival. Let stories be shields, And may the broken know, They are not voiceless. They are unwritten songs.”