Narcissus
Sometimes, a boy can be too tough
For his oversized shadow to handle.
Then, he approaches the mirror
After shooing away his lover.
He obsesses over himself
And mothers his atoms of being
Like the sea to capsized ships.
He then searches for his lost fragments
In another lover’s eyes in a scanty town.
Such is a boy with bones of dead beginnings.
Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) writes from Lagos, Nigeria. Author of A Boy’s Tears on Earth’s Tongue (Authorpedia, 2019) and The Forgiveness Series (Ghost City Press, 2022), he won the Brigitte Poirson Monthly Poetry Contest (March 2018). His poems were shortlisted in the Bridgette James Poetry Competition (2025), the Eriata Oribhabor Poetry Prize (2020), and published in Afrocritik, Kelp Journal, ArtisansQuill, Kalahari Review, Cordite Review, and elsewhere. He loves black tea, sometimes coffee. Twitter/IG @Oreal2kur