The Witness

By Mudadi Saidi

I am a walking cathedral of the lost. 

My suitcase is light, 

but my throat is heavy with hymns. 

Survival is not an escape; 

It is a heavy, sacred duty. 

It is the act of carrying the dead until they can speak again.

Behind me, 

the bell hangs mute in a ruined tower. 

Ahead of me, a microphone, a courtroom, a city of strangers. 

I will tell them about the third pew. 

I will tell them about the collection basket and the unfinished prayer. 

I will speak until justice rings louder than the rifles.

In my mind, the bell begins to move. 

One ring. Two. Three. 

I am the one making it ring now. 

I am the one finishing the song that the gunfire tried to kill. 

I am ending, but I am also beginning. 

I whisper Goodbye to the stones, 

so that I may say Hello to the truth.

Mudadi Saidi Biography
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Mudadi Saidi is a Pan-Africanist author, World Summit Awards (WSA) Youth Ambassador, and independent researcher originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A Funding Futures contest laureate, he has presented his work at Art for Peace in Washington, D.C. (2023) and the BAICE International Conference in England.

His poetry has been featured in international anthologies including A Breeze That Swept Me Away (SoulWriters Publications), From Here to There (Civic Leicester), and Canvas of Voices. He is the author of four completed collections—The Theatre of Peace, No Place to Call, Ubuntu Afrika, and The Blood Black—which explore identity and resistance. As a refugee advocate and coordinator of the Art Yetu Program, Mudadi integrates arts-based approaches into humanitarian response and community healing.