the empire

Did we forget that

Empires always fall?

Because Power is the mortar

Shattered egos fill their cracks with.

The moment we think we’ve risen above

The Othering,

Soldiers crawl like rats from the sewer,

Ready to lead the charge against

Whatever made them feel this small.

While our heads were down,

Insufficiency vined through organs,

squeezed out hearts,

infested brains.

We thought we were numbing

But we were joining an army.

These vines watered by algorithms,

created for profit,

benefitting from hatred.

How will it end?

It feels too big to hold anymore,

The division of a nation,

Spilling out of keyboards and guns,

Seeping through screens in living rooms and hands.

What happens to bodies grown in this soil?

They die on a hill of empire-rubble—

Bombed by billionaires—

Thinking it was worth hating

those shivering at the bottom.