They are not born into battle.
They arrive with open hands,
with laughter,
with faith that the world will keep them safe.

Yet, men who are not content with peace
clench their fists around power,
mistaking domination for strength
and control for legacy.
They draw borders with bullets
and call it victory.

In their pursuit to prove themselves,
they let the bombs fall.
Roads darken with blood.
Homes become rubble.
The sky learns the language of fire.

And in the wreckage stand the children.

They watch their parents die.
They memorize screams uttered in the dark of night.
The image,
a mother’s body,
a father’s final breath,
burns itself into their minds,
never fading,
never forgiving.

Some are left holding nothing but memory.
No hand to guide them through fear,
no voice to reassure them they are safe now.

They learn too early
how heavy loneliness can be,
how hunger eats away at the edges of the soul.

They grow up quickly,
not toward wisdom,
but toward survival.
Their innocence is buried beneath debris,
their childhood traded for vigilance and grief.

They flinch at loud sounds,
sleep with one eye open.

What becomes of them,
these children of war?

Do they inherit hope,
or only the lessons that violence teaches best?
Do they learn compassion,
or do we school them in hatred,
training them to believe that cruelty
is the only language
the world understands?

We say fight for tomorrow,
for freedom, for order, for peace,
yet we poison the future
by traumatizing its youngest keepers.
We carve fear into their bodies,
teaching them that love is fragile,
that safety is a lie.

Mankind marches forward,
bent on destroying itself
one senseless war at a time,
never pausing to see
that every child broken
is a piece of tomorrow erased.

What goodness survives
when innocence is sacrificed?
What world can grow
from children raised in war?

Until we choose peace over power,
mercy over dominance,
the children will continue to pay
for wars they never started,
carrying the cost of our failures
long after the guns fall silent.

Michele Luckenbaugh is a patient advocate.