Imperium ...

We built too much

and called it progress.

Choked the sky,

buried bodies under wealth,

let the cleverest liars run the show

while the rest of us learned

how to keep our heads down.

The streets filled with noise—

advertisements arguing with hunger,

sirens practicing their prayers.

Everyone selling something,

most of it fear.

Empires tripped over their own slogans.

Hitler worshippers.

Lovers of genocide.

The strong hoarded,

the weak disappeared quietly,

and history shrugged

like it always does.

The same old scapegoats.

While tech tycoons engineer a future

where flesh and bone are obsolete.

And the data centers built on our backs,

drink up the planet's resources.

But listen—

in the cracks, something stubborn moved.

People with nothing left

shared cigarettes,

shared jokes,

shared the strange relief

of no longer believing the billboards.

The old monsters collapsed

under their own weight—

too big, too loud,

too sure they would last forever.

What survived was small.

Hands.

Eyes that still noticed sunsets.

Laughter that came out wrong

but came out anyway.

Maybe that’s the trick.

Not power.

Not victory.

Just breathing long enough

to see the ruins

and decide to plant something stupid

right in the middle of them.