Tukur Ridwan | Phoenix

Nights ago, I inhaled a fiery demon through my mouth, wrapped like my late grandfather at his funeral. After some minutes of sorcery, I felt him begging anxiously for a way out of my body— the asylum within was too small to house his malady. Exorcised by my exhale, I let him out like an ex-convict, he had turned to smoke— Houdini! That was the only way to fit in the calm wind with his pungent smell. He left footprints of fire & ice in me. I knew I could be an angel, & I could also darken my wings to dine with the underworld. I reached the altitude of God’s scalp & rubbed his head, & dined with him on a table of salt & sugar, & I could not even tell which was which. Like an open window, I allowed light to penetrate through my deadhead.

I could see it all with my eyes closed— Genesis & Apocalypse, while my hemispheres debated which one was more likely. This light gifted me with creation. I became another god in a mortal cloak, making sweet melodies for the walls to listen to. But sleep would not allow a man to live his dream, and this dream, too, could also mar everything I lay my uneasy hands on. Everything I saw shrank, & I felt like the only giant, waiting for the David that would hit my forehead with the stone of sanity. I had aimed & shot all my targets while sitting & daydreaming until slumber later lured me to bed with her suave hands. An hour later, I woke again to confirm if the last sleep was death, or something close.

I lighted & puffed again, & my soul left my body for a cruise & held my shadow by the hands till I became dark in my image, betraying the prism of my eyes. Fragrant is the smell of smoke to the air’s nose. Two dogs sniffed & rushed to me, barking, wanting to take a sip of fire, licking my cheeks while I rubbed their fur, feeling like Snoop. From ashes to ashes, blood runs through vessels, but ours burn through vessels. I felt like a chimney while conjuring the ether realm up my cranium. Thanks to some feel-good reggae. In my head was a new mansion for a visionary’s hallucinating eyes, courtesy of this filter of fire in my hands— a colony of embers that makes me burn slowly. Everywhere became lower than my feet. To think I have always dreamt of levitating.

Tukur Ridwan (He/Him) is a Nigerian author of three poetry collections, including Silence (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, Empyrean Literary Magazine, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, Afrocritik, Kelp Journal, ArtisansQuill, and elsewhere. He loves black tea, sometimes coffee.

Twitter @Oreal2kur | IG @Oreal2kur