Wars employ.

Tyrants enjoy.

Blood is fuel.

War's cost.

Names lost.

Blood is fuel.

Rivers bleed.

Men concede.

Blood is fuel.

Victors loathed.

Vengeance is owed.

Blood is fuel.

Dark skies choke.

Towns hide in smoke.

Blood is fuel.

Crops burn.

Stomachs churn.

Blood is fuel.

Flags folded in dust.

Dog tags tainted with rust.

Blood is fuel.

A home erased.

A street displaced.

Blood is fuel.

White flag raised.

Body grazed.

Blood is fuel.

A child cried.

Mother died.

Blood is fuel.

BLOOD IS FUEL

"BLOOD IS FUEL" is a message regarding the losses and the weight of war. Regarding present conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the most recent attacks of Iran, the poem is supposed to show how these wars are driven by blood, where they fight for their blood in the sense of lineage, but also how human lives, including the innocent, are consumed to drive the engine of war. The poem starts and ends with "BLOOD IS FUEL" to symbolize that war is a cycle, where one war's bloodshed fuels another.

The poem is structured in a way that zooms in from the world's systems that wage war, from governments, dictators, and generational vengeance, which pay minimal attention to their people for the sake of clinging to their own power and wealth, to homes, communities, and individual victims. A child appears last because, whenever war happens, they bear its consequences without any say in its causes. The poem takes inspiration from a personal event where Jeddah, the city where I was raised, was targeted by Yemeni missiles; hearing the explosions and the flames caused by the strikes made me realize the weight of war and how helpless children would be in the event of such an attack, as their lives would be the most affected, from orphancy to loss of education and the trauma it would bring as they grow up.

I chose to repeat "Blood is fuel" after every stanza in the poem to highlight the aspects of war and how everyone is affected by it; this phrase illustrates how blood, the source of life, can also serve as the fuel for war, a source of destruction. From the rusting dog tags of fallen soldiers to the mourning of people over their nation's destruction as they fold flags, ending with a child left without a mother. Every loss, every drop of blood feeds the engine of war.

Blood is fuel.