My mother’s womb was a museum,
lit dimply by the slow turning of time,
curated with stillborn symphonies,
umbilical cords coiled like statues around exhibits of almost.
I know this because I was born clutching a fistful of my father’s teeth,
their roots still buried in the silt of his silence.
They will not tell you how a boy’s first cry is an unguarded confession—
how his tongue, still wet with amniotic psalm,
is taught to carve itself into a blade before it learns to speak.
How the greetings of a man with nothing to his name knows
no worth.
They will lie.
At seven, I buried my laugh in the backyard
where the soil was sour with unfermented Oshikundu.
Mother said “Dig deeper” so the earth wouldn’t vomit it back up like a curse.
She didn’t know then: grief is a dog that always unearths its bone.
I learned silence before speech.
I knew how to hold my breath for days
so the walls would forget I was there.
Tell me, what is devotion if not that?
My spine is a journal of every man who fell before me—
grandfather’s knuckles rusting in a jar of mahangu seeds,
uncle’s breath still lingering in the rafters like a noose that forgot its purpose.
Brother’s life—a funeral, the kind people visit but never stay long enough to mourn.
I was taught that we have a responsibility, not to fail at words.
But, how do I put into words the grief of boys devoured by the earth?
Carried by winds that know no hope.
A boy’s body is a church where the pews are lined with almost.
Almost loved. Almost a man. Almost human.
I peeled my skin back once,
found my ribs strung with piano wire,
each breath plucking a reflection that stopped recognising me.
I stood in the mirror, naked and ashamed,
wondering how much of me was mine,
and how much had already been taken.
A baptism for the ghosts who raised me.
Friday arrives, seeking for kerosene and unfinished prayers.
My brother asks why his hands keep crumbling to ash.
I don’t tell him we’re built from the rubble that couldn’t stay buried.
Instead, I show him how to stitch a scream into his sleeve,
how to wear his hunger like a crown of thorns
that blooms lilies when it rains.
Mother tried to love us in the only tongue she knew:
salt and scalding water.
Her hands, cracked like drought,
forgiveness was pressed into our backs like brands.
We wore them as scars.
I drank the Oshikundu that never fermented,
waited for the bitterness to sweeten,
for time to do what it had always promised.
But it sat in my mouth, flat and unfinished,
just like me.
And the bitter aftertaste of neglect hangs about.
Here is the truth they’ll carve into your tomb:
a boy is not a boy but a wound dressed in dark light.
We burn without fire, without smoke, without the mercy of leaving scars.
And when they find us,
hollowed as gourd shells—
they’ll say, “Look how they shine”,
not realising it’s the rot within,
phosphorescent and ravenous,
finally gnawing its way out.
I still wake up.
I still open my mouth and dare the whole world to listen.
I still peel myself free from the walls they sucked me in,
and tell myself, over and over,
I am more than something to be digested.
I am something.
I am someone.
I am more.
Note: Oshikundu is a customary fermented millet beverage from Namibia typically consumed by the Oshiwambo people. It is prepared by using pearl millet (mahangu), water, and sorghum, and has a slightly sour taste and probiotic effects.
Johannes Shikongo, an alumnus of the University of Namibia with an honours degree in biochemistry, deftly blends his writing prowess with a profound compassion for performance poetry. He is a writer, youth leader, medical student, and poet.