The war was not a war —
not when the guns turned inward,
not when the flags were stitched with fear,
not when the bombs fell only
on the homes of those with different names.

They called it cleansing.
They called it holy.
They called it order,
as if order meant ashes,
as if peace was built from bones.

It was not a battlefield —
it was a school, a church, a street,
where children were marked
before they could speak,
where neighbors burned
the bridges of memory
and marched in boots made of silence.

War wears a uniform.
Genocide wears the face of a man
you thought you knew.
It comes with lists,
with fences,
with whispers that grow into walls.

And when it is done —
if it is ever done —
there are numbers where names were,
ghosts in places maps have erased,
songs that no one sings anymore.

The war was not a war.
It was a choice,
made again and again,
by hands that turned away
and mouths that said
it’s not my people,
not my problem,
not my war.