The Blood Price For Power

Erinfolami Mayowa Toheeb

Power makes people hungry sometimes,

Like thirst that craves the quench of water.

Yet this life has but one sure end—

Why do we kill each other, then?

To prove what, and to whom?

Despite the crowns, the swords, the might,

The grave will swallow all in time.

Such is life.

Oh, World Superpowers,

Ordained with strength to mend the earth,

Not to keep its people trembling,

For we are meant to live as one.

Empires crumble, but humanity endures.

Yet wars beget their progeny—

A ceaseless tide of generational pain.

How I long for the day when this cycle breaks.

Oh, World Superpowers,

Whether justified or blind in the fire you ignite,

Pause, and consider the weight of consequence.

Think of the frail—the voiceless and the vulnerable:

The children, the elders, the innocents caught in your fury.

In your quest to wield dominion,

You leave behind fields of sorrow.

Victory is fleeting, and none rule forever.

Grief sows seeds in the hearts of survivors,

And from those seeds, resistance will grow.

The child of the defeated may one day rise,

Born to avenge their loss,

And so the cycle of blood endures—

A war no end can tame.

There must be an end.

Even if no heirs remain to challenge your reign,

One will rise, unexpected, unbound,

To confront your might with new resolve.

An inevitable reckoning looms.

End this cycle,

Before calamity consumes us all.

We are one,

Bound by the thread of shared humanity.

Published in Issue No. 3, Pulsus Litterae, December 1st, 2024.

Erinfolami Mayowa Toheeb (known as Mayor) is a penultimate 300 level English student in the University of Lagos, UNILAG. He has a remarkable penchant for writing poetry, a motivational speaker with interest in writing fictional work. He published Whispers of life and Legacy, a collection of 16 poems through Amazon and he published “Nature's Fury, Humanity Trial” in Outside the box Poetry which is a single poem.