REVERSE EVALUATION > POETRY
Today I wear a smile with God-like ignorance. and you
confuse it for childlike innocence, this rainbow in my mouth
the world is burning, and the stench of prayers for rain curdles
with the faithless smoke. The day before, I squatted.
and communed with the broken walls
because I could not stand staring into a mirror & seeing
the spitting image of my father. I took a knife to scrape his
name from my tongue. but what would become of my mother?
and the language she spat into my mouth. “love is not for seeing
eyes,” but oh, what a Bartimaean miracle! the mud
and the blade. the moth and the flame—my unwilling surrender
to the cauterizing of my name. is the proof of a scar not the birthmark
on my chin. how I turned the other cheek because a palm
had blossomed there. In this poem, the world is not safe
for a child wounded before the shelter of a womb. this morning,
the sky is soiled with impure hands —clergymen, like my father, claiming
to commiserate with the ache of a grieving god. but what does He know
about wounds except for transgressions? what do I know about colors
except for burning flags? I paste a pastel smile across my face.
and my lover says butterflies do not nibble on plastic petals.
unless we are both ignorant of joy. unlike God, like my father —
i would not flood my body in guilt only to plant a redeeming halo
Victory Okon, who writes under the moniker Splendor Victor, is a Nigerian poet interested in making beauty out of breathing. A graduate of Health Education from the University of Uyo, Nigeria, he has also spent time working as a teacher, where—despite modest pay—he relished guiding pupils through English and Literature and discovering how language can reshape the way young minds see the world.
Writing from a country where faith and identity often sit under the weight of social and religious scrutiny, his poetry frequently turns to questions of God, inheritance, grief, and belief—sometimes as prayer, sometimes as cross-examination.
He is the joint winner of Shuzia’s 2021 “The Testimony” Contest, winner of the Skybird Poetry Slam 2022, a finalist for the Kayode Aderinokun Prize for Poetry (2025), and winner of the Morgan Ekanem Poetry Prize (2026). His work has appeared in PoetryColumnNND.
You can find him on Instagram and Facebook @Splendor_Victor.