There are many instances,
those I have not been proud of,
when I have scoured the colonies collecting tiny, ornate cigar boxes
to house the bodies of dead, miniature emperors of the
Imperial realm beneath my floorboards.

Cheap pine does tend to hide many things,
for it is god-like, this Empire.
its beauty: arresting and unearthly.

I discovered it as all great historical finds come to us,
on an unremarkable, and unplanned afternoon.

I felt not unlike an ancestral WASP,
stumbling upon the new world, or at the very least, new to me.
how presumptuous, to think that this great majestic thing beneath my feet is my junior.

Surely, then, I am the discovery,
bringing my primitive ways,
attire, tribe and desires
to the Imperial Court.

From them, I learned secrets,
a pantheon of miniature gods,
and thousands of years worth of minute literature and culture.
all of it in lovely,
resplendant whispers only the miniature can voice.

From me,
they simply learned of our endless,
tireless wars in futility.
From me,
they took ill and died in a quiet,
unassuming plague,
the sickness of our humanity.

We **** beauty,
at all times, and at all places.
We **** what we touch, and hold closest to us,
our bodies made solely of trillions of happy daggers,
primed and sharpened
for the great, sweeping massacre that resides in us all.