Author’s Note

This piece isn’t anti-anyone. It isn’t even anti-country.

It’s about perspective.

Growing up inside any system makes it easy to believe that your experience is the default setting for the world. But no nation is immune to propaganda, and no culture holds a monopoly on truth.

Not the Default is a reminder — to myself as much as anyone else — to question comfortably inherited narratives, to look beyond borders, and to understand that expanding your worldview isn’t betrayal… it’s growth.

— Rowan Evans

Not the Default
Poetry by Rowan Evans

Oh, you sound
so surprised—
like you think
our government
never lies.

Like propaganda
is a foreign concept,
something they do
but never us.
But what do you
know of China, bruh?

I’m not trying
to shatter
your mind.

I’m just saying—
expand
your world view.
Look beyond
the borders.

See that your life
is not
the default.
Things are different
all across
the globe.

But the sad truth is—
some of us
were taught
to never question
our own.

The border isn’t the edge
of the world—
just the edge
of your comfort.

If you’re interested in more poetry, you can find it here → [The Library of Ashes]