By Augustine Tashinga Mudzudza
21 | Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
First-place young adult contest winner, Peace and Conflict category

With lines from “Sudan’s War in the Mountains” by Sophie Neiman, a Pulitzer Center-supported story

“Life has to be lived, even if not believed.” —The Stone Virgins, Yvonne Vera

heads wiser than mine laid claim on
                 the sand beneath my toes, so
                 this land is a site of burning. the
                 sky is bleached white by heat, the air
                 so thick with dust it
                 smells        of        cinders.
                 and still, i must walk. for dinner, i
                 nurse the purrs of my stomach
                 with gunfire from surrounding hills—
                 the percussion of heads wiser than mine in
                 a fork–and–knife–duel for
                 the sand beneath my toes.

in a battle of utensils, my home becomes
a contested region

                 there’s no tv here, so
                 soldiers blast tunes from bluetooth
                 speakers, dreadlocks falling into their eyes, limp
                 as fresh corpses. when they pin
                 me to the sand, my screams catch
                 in my throat like prayers misconceived. so
                 i breathe to the beat of the
                 speakers to quiet the searing coals in
                 my thighs.

in a battle of limbs, my
body becomes another
contested region.

                 when the sun comes up, they’re
                 gone. once more, the sky is bleached white
                 by heat, the air so thick with dust it
                 smells        of        ashes.
                 and the soft animal of
                 this body is mine again, a battered,
                 bleeding thing. still, my
                 bleeding isn’t remarkable. next
                 to me, a steel rod protrudes
                 from the festering pink of
                 a shin. they say he got hit by
                 shrapnel. that he, too, has
                 bled. that many women have
                 bled on this journey. that
                 one day, this will end. but for now,
                 i bleed. steady scarlet rivulets
                 pulse to the whims
of heads wiser than my own.

Augustine Tashinga Mudzudza is a writer from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. His work appears in Brittle Paper, Isele Magazine, and elsewhere. His short fiction was shortlisted for the 2024 Carnelian Heart Prize, and he is an alum of the Idembeka and Caine Prize workshops for creative writing. He is a law student at Midlands State University and has represented Zimbabwe in international moot court and debate, including as an ESL semi-finalist at the 2025 World Universities Debating Championship and Best Oralist at the 2026 African Regional Rounds of the Manfred Lachs Space Law Moot Court Competition.

This poem was written in conversation with Audre Lorde’s “Poetry Is Not a Luxury” and with the conviction that poetry can give language, shape, and urgency to the interconnected injustices visited upon African bodies. Naming struggle is, for the speaker, part of making it legible enough to confront.

Read more winning entries from the 2026 Fighting Words Poetry Contest