They lit the fires, then named the age,
Carved victories in stone,
Washed the blood from borrowed hands
And called the ruins “throne.”
The dead were neat, the lines were clean,
No screams between the words,
Only dates and triumphs told
By those the flames had spared.
The truth was heavy, so they cut it thin,
Left only what could stand—
A lighter tale for steadier hands.
History’s ink is made of ash,
Of hands that learned to live,
Of those who walked away intact
From what they couldn’t forgive.
The graves don’t write, the burned don’t speak,
The silenced never win—
So history belongs to those
Who outlived all the guilt within.
They called it war, they called it fate,
They called it “necessary,”
Named the children “collateral”
And moved on, clean and wary.
They praised the ones who made it through,
Forgot the price they paid,
And crowned survival as the proof
That nothing should be said.
When memory hurts too much to bear,
They teach the world to forget—
And call it wisdom instead.
History’s ink is made of ash,
Of hands that learned to live,
Of those who closed their eyes at night
And kept what breath could give.
The truth lies buried under dates,
Between the lines of sin—
Because the past is penned by those
Who survived the guilt within.
But the earth remembers every step,
Every name the pages lost,
And bones still whisper in the dark
Of victory’s true cost.
One day the silence will speak back,
The margins will ignite,
And names erased will rise again
From history’s long night.
For stories don’t belong to kings,
Or only those who win—
The truest past still waits to breathe
Beyond the ink of the unburned.
