Siyanda Mhotsha, Botswana's National Honour, September 2026
Siyanda Mhotsha wrote the highest-scoring poem from Botswana in the Writory International Poetry Contest, September 2026: Even the Dead Tell Stories, scored 70 out of 100 by the blind judging panel across five published criteria. The poem was read in English, Latin script.
Even the Dead Tell Stories
Even the dead tell stories. The mistake is believing they wait for the living to listen. I found my name last winter not written, not etched, but gouged into stone as if it had resisted. The headstone was older than my mother. Older than the road that led me there. The date beneath it was tomorrow. I smiled. Not because it was funny because something inside me recognized it. The flowers were fresh. Still wet at the stems. Soil disturbed. Whoever brought them had stood where I stood, breathing the same air I don't remember leaving. Since then, the world has been correcting itself. Cashiers speak to the space beside me. Their apologies drift through my chest without landing. Children wave then stop. Not confused. Afraid. Like they almost said my name, and swallowed it before something else heard. Dogs don't bark anymore. They watch. Low. Unblinking. Tracking something that moves when I don't. Mirrors... have stopped pretending. Some mornings, I am not there. Other mornings, I am, but already occupied. We share the same face. Same posture. Same waiting. Only one of us breathes. I started avoiding that room. You know the one. The one every thought walks around. But doors don't stay closed just because you don't open them. Last night, it was already open. Inside no body. No blood. No sign of violence. Just a chair facing the wardrobe. A notebook resting on its seat. And page after page of this. Written carefully. Deliberately. Like someone was afraid of being interrupted. Every line exact. Every pause. Every breath. Even this one. At the bottom of the final page, in my handwriting, was a single sentence: "If you're reading this, you've remembered enough. Close the door. Don't let the next version find you." The ink beneath it was still drying. Then another sentence appeared. Not written. Pressed. As though invisible fingers were tracing words through the other side of the paper. "You're reading too slowly." I turned. The wardrobe was no longer closed. I know it was. I checked it. Twice. Inside nothing. But the darkness was wrong. Not empty. Just... waiting to be filled. Then three knocks. Not on the wood. Not behind it. From inside. Slow. Patient. Like it knew I would count them. One. Two. Three. The handle moved. Not quickly. Not suddenly. Carefully. Like it didn't want to startle me. Like it had done this before. Like it remembered how I reacted last time. And then, for the first time, I understood why the flowers on my grave were always fresh. Even the dead tell stories. Sometimes, they aren't warnings. They're instructions, left behind by the version of you that almost escaped. The only question is when the wardrobe opens, which one of you walks back out.
Every country's leading poet each month is named on the September 2026 National Honours. The contest is open to poets in Botswana and everywhere else: enter the current round, and every poem receives a score out of 100 and a certificate.