by Kevin Vivers
how our mirrors pronounce us dead
at times, you are your own terrorist,
the saboteur in someone else’s captivity
perhaps the ones after your heart, your blood,
have turned your soul into a time bomb,
wrapped in a box, which your body is,
but you are the voice of your shadow,
silent as a dove, they think peace walks
in their room when they see you
beaming with smiles like star-studded teeth
of nights, but war is what you are
when you hear another teary voice, breaking,
wailing inside of you at how every waste
& stones are hurled at your face & feet,
until your bleeding soul limps with your legs
into your room that often looks like a gallow
to you, when you see your apparition
telling your weary body to come along
that the world is no more, that you’re just
a leftover of the cynical crumbs & you smile again.
you think the other side has a table of compensation
prepared for you, for all the rain your eyes have fallen
in the wrong season, for all the blades & bones
you have swallowed, for all the bruises & testaments
of thorns from flowers of loss that people throw at you
when you feel dead. & you can’t wake anymore
in your mouth, to tell them how much you wish to live.
Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) is a Nigerian author of three poetry collections, including Silence (Stripes Lit Mag., 2025), and a recipient of the Brigitte Poirson Monthly Poetry Prize (March 2018). His poems were shortlisted in the Bridgette James Poetry Competition (2025), the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (2020), and were also published in Zoetic Press, Afrocritik, Poetry Potion, Empyrean Literary Magazine, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, Kelp Journal, ArtisansQuill, and elsewhere. He loves black tea, sometimes coffee. Twitter/IG @Oreal2kur
Kevin Vivers has been a photographer for many years, and is still amazed by what the world has to offer. https://kviversphotos.com/work Instagram – @viverskevin.