World is not beautiful
War isn’t new. Our world has been bleeding for centuries, crimson rivers running beneath the cities we call beautiful, masked by glass towers and neon lights. They build malls on buried bones, schools on scorched earth, paved roads across old battlefields where children once fell. This isn’t a fresh wound—it’s a festering one, hidden beneath layers of concrete and luxury, dressed up to sell the lie of peace. Because to create a “perfect” world, someone had to die first. To open a new road, they buried villages. To start a “new generation,” they ended entire bloodlines. They took land from those who never wanted war, stole it from quiet people who simply wanted to plant, sing, raise children—turned them into refugees in their own homeland. We celebrate progress in bright lights while mothers mourn in the dark. We marvel at steel and stone that stand tall on stolen soil, bought with the cries of the innocent. Men drunk on greed send boys to die with guns heavier than their hearts, force girls to kneel and obey, steal children’s childhoods by handing them rifles before toys—their first plaything cold and lethal, their first game survival. They slaughter hope, call it victory, and grin through press conferences as if the world isn’t burning behind their eyes. And every country, every border, every flag—they all share this blood-soaked truth: the art we marvel at, the culture we praise, the palaces and monuments and paintings—were all paid for by bodies of innocents, children who never got to grow, women who were raped and erased, men who were butchered as examples, entire generations sacrificed so others could stand on stages and sing about a “better tomorrow.” So don’t tell me the world is perfect. Don’t look at the Earth like it’s pure. Because beneath every masterpiece is the echo of a scream. Beneath every paradise is the stain of blood. And until we face the rotting foundation we all stand on—the bones and screams of those forced to die so we could build our “civilization”—this world will never stop bleeding, no matter how many flowers we plant to hide the smell.
Copyright © Yanna Phawta | Year Posted 2025
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