Liminal Space
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
— Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Don't lock the door.
It is poor form to interrupt the entrance
of your sister, who has mistaken your bedroom
for an exorcism. When her hand jams the frame,
crimson and pulsing like a bare heart against the wood,
don't mistake this for violence.
This is just how she knocks.
Fight the urge to write a poem about your experience.
The world will not believe you.
Keep an impassive face when your mother intervenes.
Observe your mother: a wounded shield,
apologising to the bullet for getting in the way.
She is not weak; she is held hostage by biology.
When your mother begs you not to call the police,
understand the subtext:
The flashing lights are not to save you.
The flashing lights, she believes, will take her grandson away.
Forget the knife in your sister’s hand.
Forget her grin
when she cackles out the word “ladyboy.”
Instead, admire the irony of your own hands.
Look at them: they are large, capable.
And because of this, they must remain in your pockets.
If you raise them to block a blow,
you are not her brother anymore.
You immediately become a headline.
Don't speak;
your voice is too deep for a victim of abuse.
It rumbles when it should shriek.
So, swallow the panic.
Let it sit in your stomach like cold coffee.
Listen to your sister crash into your door,
demanding to be let in,
while you stand on the other side,
unarmed, unmoving, undone.
Ask yourself what is in your heart.
It is not a reliquary. It is a vacuum:
the space where your self-defence is dispossessed.
You have learned the hardest lesson:
that to survive these nights,
you must not become the knight.
You must become the air.
You must fill the gap between the door and the frame.
Stand very still.
Be the ghost she already thinks you are.
Sheridan Walter (he/they) is a queer South African post-production film story editor, medical writer, and doctor with a master’s degree in philosophy. His work appears or is forthcoming in Rogue Agent, Fruit Journal, New Verse News, and Down in the Dirt.
He began writing poetry more deliberately after surviving a near-fatal episode of severe pancreatitis, which led to his first submissions for publication. His poetry often works with themes of trauma, medicine, queerness, and South African identity, and leans toward emotional and bodily truth rather than polish.
His earliest poems were written in Afrikaans, a language derived from Dutch, and he now writes in both Afrikaans and English. He’s especially drawn to small and independent literary magazines for their intimacy and willingness to take risks.
He is currently working toward a chapbook.
Instagram: https://instagram.com/sheridanwalter2
The poet about this work:
‘The poem contains depictions of domestic violence and a quoted slur spoken by a character. These elements are not decorative or sensational; they exist to render the power imbalance and social permission that allow harm to continue. The language belongs to the abuser, not to the poem.
I do not believe the work requires apology or justification beyond its own intention: to examine how survival is often mistaken for neutrality, and how restraint is misread as consent.
If the poem succeeds, it is because it refuses to soften what already insists on being real.’