Poems for Peace Competition: read Tito Molokwu's Highly Commended poem.

To My Future Child- December 2018

To My Future Child,

I long for your days to never know the destruction of tyrants,
Colour trumping compassion, regime abolishing reconciliation,
The future must know that peace is acceptance
I wish that each person, over the shouts of division, whispers unity, cessational spirants,
Respect not possession over the wombs and lands we come from, will be taught across nations,

I desire a world for you in which compliance, submission to the system is offensive
In which men do not just inherit the original sin of pompous power and greed
Because peace is proactive
Humankind will choose to work towards understanding, amity as their incentive
As people choose to sacrifice to suffice not only their own need,

I expect those who have authority to show you what dissension causes,
The travesties as a result of the gravity of gluttonous rule and regime
Your generation will know that peace is predicated on learning
This way when faced with repetition, to remind of the past there will be no pauses
Our mistakes will not be distant memories or a sadists’ wishful daydream

For so long we watched wars raging, as if there was nothing we could do
For so long we gave in to the idea that love was a verb impossible to achieve.
But It takes faith, starting with every human.
It simply cannot exist is if you do not believe.
Because I know that peace is possible. And so must you.

Tito Molokwu
17 years old
Watford Grammar School For Girls