At the centre of survival, the players multiply their masks,
each turn rehearsed like an ending.

they set fire to grasslands meant for grazing,
and call it order.
they speak peace,
while shepherds count ash where pasture once breathed.

grief gathers like a ceremony no one planned;
a mourning that refuses to end.
even the sky forgets its rhythm,
struck dumb by what it has witnessed.

we grieve the quiet ones,
the tortoise who carried time too slowly,
the sheep who followed paths already erased.

hope climbs briefly toward light,
then collapses without witness.

in the deep rooms of power,
decisions move like unseen limbs;
grasping, pulling, dividing.

to understand their design
is to feel your own heart thinning.

they do not appear as monsters;
only as structure,
as silence arranged into policy,
as shadow given authority.

and the streets remember everything:
bones beneath language,
dust beneath promises,
a land still learning how to survive itself.

…

Obiotika Wilfred Toochukwu is a Nigerian creative writer based in Lagos whose early passion for literature first found expression in philosophical and theological journals at a major seminary in Enugu. His commitment to literary craft later earned him admission to Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, where he studied Literature-in-English. Today, his poems and short stories appear in both Nigerian and international literary journals and magazines. Some of his published works can be found or are forthcoming in Ojuju Magazine, North of Oxford, Last Syllable, Flora Fiction, Confetti, Amsterdam Quarterly, Fiction on the Web, Oriire Review, Shallow Tales Review, Short Glass Journal, Murderous Ink Press, Poetry Wales Review etc. He was the 1^st Runner Up for the Eriata Oribhabor 2025 Poetry Competition Prize.