The dance of desire, By Osmund Agbo

I want fame, I will fortune but no flashing lights,
No crowded streets or endless nights
Where strangers pry and whispers sting
I want the peace that’s fit for a king.

I crave life’s simple, quiet charms
A walk at dusk, warm hearts, calm arms.
Yet I long for splendour, gilded and grand The velvet touch of power in hand.

I yearn for wealth that silences fear,
No sleepless nights with futures unclear.
I dream of sands where turquoise tides sigh,
Lounging with a Mai Tai beneath endless sky.

I seek the gaze of beauty’s glow,
The kind that sets the world aglow.
But too, I crave the minds of men
With wisdom deep and hearts unbent.

I wear my honour like a crest,
A quiet fire within my chest.
I toil to chisel strength from clay
Ripped biceps, six-pack, sculpted display.

Yet life — ah, life — twists all the while,
Its fickle hand both harsh and guile.
For every wish fulfilled with pride,
Another longing stirs inside.

Were life too perfect, pristine, and plain,
We’d drown in comfort, numb to pain.
For struggle’s weight gives triumph wings
And chaos paints the song life sings.

So here I stand, with wants in tow
Yet grateful still for ebb and flow.
For it’s the chase — the climb, the fall
That makes this fleeting life worth all.

Osmund Agbo is a US-based medical doctor and author. His works include Black Grit, White Knuckles: The Philosophy of Black Renaissance and a fiction work titled The Velvet Court: Courtesan Chronicles. His latest works, Pray, Let the Shaman Die and Ma’am, I Do Not Come to You for Love, have just been released.