The Silence After Congratulations

Everywhere, it lingers. It is the framed paper I dust each morning, the silver trim now dull with waiting. It is the silence after a ringtone, the pause between “We’ll be in touch” and never are. It is the question I no longer ask at the dinner table. It is the ceiling I interrogate when my mother’s hands return—folding my graduation shirt like a sacred garment.

We hang our degrees like windchimes that never catch a breeze. We iron clothes that we have nowhere to go in. We learn how to name our hunger softly. We write cover letters like liturgies, signing them off with borrowed faith.

There is a ritual in resistance. In the email that blooms into nothing.  
In dressing with armor—polished shoes— to kneel before the glow of the screen. There is a rhythm in disappointment: click, send, refresh. Click, send, refresh again. Each job application folded like an offering, each rejection a quiet song we hum under our breath.

I try to explain it to my little brother—why I'm still here, why the fridge hums louder than we do, why the house feels smaller now. He draws me with a cape and calls me a superhero. I hang it next to the degree, both of us pretending. Two relics of a faith I can’t abandon.  

I pour tea for my grandmother. She asks how the job is. I tell her I’m still hoping. She nods, like she’s known hope longer than breath. She knows how silence grows legs and walks beside you and how hunger spreads when you feed it that silence.  

There are days the sun feels like a reminder, like a clock I can’t read. I open the curtains anyway. I sweep the same floor twice. I write resumes like prayers.

There hasn’t been a job here in months. The bus drives by and I wave at no one. I count rejections like rosary beads. I try to say it’s not shame I feel; it’s something quieter. Like waiting for the rain when the sky is clear.  Like believing the seeds are still there even as the soil runs thin.

My nephew learns to walk in the living room. He stumbles. I cheer like he’s flown.
For a moment, I forget how heavy this house has become. I help my neighbor’s daughter with her homework. She asks what I do. I say I studied to understand the world. She asks, “Did the world pass?” I smile. Not yet.

The kettle sings. The light softens. We talk about small things, kind things—how the cat gave birth, how the bread rose softer this time. We say “thank you” before “good night.”

The degree still hangs. It still believes in me. I try to return the favor. I fold my dreams into the pillowcase, whisper them down like lullabies.

Tomorrow morning, I rise again. Resurrect myself from bed, bury another version of the life I thought I’ll have. I open the screen. I hope it doesn’t hurt. Because this is the oldest ritual known to the abandoned—kneeling at an altar of nothing.  This waiting. This love. This trying.



What the Living Do With Fire

At dawn, we burn our dead’s hair.
We braid memory into flame.
We whisper names into the smoke
and watch it carry grief
up, into whatever listens.

My uncle taught me this
ritual from a village
that now lives only in stories.
At the river, we wash the ashes into the current.
Not to cleanse. To consent.
This is how the living say:
I remain. I endure. I still dare to try.

The children come with petals like offerings.
The men come with hands closed like verdicts.
The women come with bread and songs they no longer believe.
But they sing anyway.
Because it matters that the air remembers.

What is grief
but a ritual of returning?
Of lighting candles in the ribcage
and hoping the wind is gentle?
We were taught never to leave the house unblessed, never to speak ill of the dead.

Sometimes I light a match,
not for prayer,
but to remember I am flammable, too.
That loss is not just what leaves,
but what lingers.

At night, I dream of fire
not the hunger of ruin,
but the flame that clears the field,
makes the dark soil remember spring.
I wake with smoke in my throat
and forgiveness burning sweet on my tongue.

This is how I love now:
with matches,
with songs,
with rituals that smell like earth after rain—
like endings that know how to begin.

About the author:

Johannes Shikongo, an alumnus of the University of Namibia with an Honors degree in Biochemistry, deftly blends his writing prowess with a profound compassion for performance poetry. He is a writer, youth leader, medical student and a performance poet. Johannes’ work has been published in Doek and elsewhere. 

Feature image by Prayag Aghara on Unsplash