As I wake to a new day, a new me arises
Different yet the same, a fresh reset
Retaining those values, fundamental
In defining one's true character, absent
The previous outline of my whole.

Confusion takes hold, for now I am half
Like folded tracing paper, overlapping
Complex lines in gesture, ever moving
In an attempt to remember, who I was
Before peaceful sleep took me under.

Stubborn I stand tall, looking around
To my surroundings, searching for meaning
Amongst a newly minted world, glimpsing
A single picture, mirroring my sketch
Standing next to the only reason I wake.

...

Only your beauty can complete my art.

...

You, my heart.

From Publius
To Marcus

Marcus, I must apologize:
It is true that I said you were as Antinous
To Gaius' Hadrianus,
But do not fret, it was not in jest;
I truly did ask the Gods to curse you so.

You see, this farm,
This land,
Has been my ward long before you...
In your Janus mask,
Were hired.
At least that God understands the difference
Between war and peace.

Unlike you, dear Marcus,
Who brings only chaos to the fields;
A greater pestilence than any drought or rot.
You are the weevil that spoils the grain,
Corrupting all around you.

Poor Gaius has already fallen
Under your impious spell.
His fields grow fallow from association
With you Marcus!

What shame you bring your family
With your lazy immorality,
Incapable of discerning right from wrong,
Lest it be ascribed by your new dominus, Gaius,
Whose skin your claws flay with fatal flattery.

All this while I tend both your fields,
And mine own,
Working myself to the bone;
The heat, and sweat, and bugs,
Reminiscent of Pluto's underworld.
To honor my family.
To feed my family.

I honor my ancestors Marcus!
Daily, I make offerings to Gods of house and state
At my household alter;

The Capitoline triad overflow with my piety,
Bringing abundance to mine soul and soil alike.
Plenty, that you, sweet Antinous, claim as your own.

No longer.
I'm divorcing myself from all of you.
You can have the land.
As it stands it would make a beautiful wedding plot.
I've even gone to the trouble of forging you a ring,
Meticulously sourced from your masters ****!

Consider it a fragrant farewell
From your favorite fan,
Who will fondly not remember you,
Even as you scramble without me,
And miss the coattails you rode,
To usurp my home.

Woe to the plow;
Proscribed to die in rust.

Signed,
PERTINAX

If only I could summon the will to banish my daemons;
Exorcise the rot that for too long has brought me low;
Waged a war unseen and unheard by the outside;
Inside, a mutinous cacophony of a ****** battlefield;
Where the parts of me unfouled by corruption, weep;
Tears of crimson blood run down as flowing rivers rage;
Anger, that the current refuses to change its course;
Sadness, that I was the one who had diverted destiny;
Swept away by tides no mortal man can hope to shake;
Trapped, like mighty Atlas, beneath the weight of fate;
An unfortunate purgatory of endless indecision;
A fear to see myself beyond the scars I have caused;
Calloused, my pessimism knows no boundaries;
There can be no going back to brighter days;
When days are comparable only to the blackest night;
Sunrises carry the gravitas of the setting sun, reversed;
Life, loses the beauty that once inspired the muse;
Leaving me feeling empty, lost on 'oft forgotten seas;
Praying for Charybdis to churn and drown my daemons;
Finally setting me free from this self imposed slavery;
Shattering the chains holding my past to my present

From Publius

To Gaius



Gaius, how long have we worked together now?



Three, four years?



Are we not as friends, whose sweat salts the soil?

Whose blood still stains mine alter?

...

And mine yours?

...

Have you forgotten your oath?

As brothers have we not sacrificed for the work?



In shared turmoil we toiled with miniscule minutias,

Always working together to make solutions

From pesty problems.

...

Yet, since you hired Marcus you have been different;

...

The work once shared has now become mine own.

No longer do you seek success in teamwork,



Nay,



Languid you have become with the work;

Heavy have mine shoulders become as a result.



Marcus is a joke.

Sure, he makes a fine comrade

Suitable for long binges of wine and women,

But his intellectual capacity is found wanting.

...

A detriment to getting the job done.

...

Still, you insist upon toting him around,

Holding his hand like a little lost puppy

Whose eyes water with weeping greed,

For more and more favoritism and need.

While, I, sit here and continue the work;

I am here finishing what we started, Gaius:



My SWEAT

...

My BLOOD



Has never ceased to pour forth to the land,

While you reap the harvest, leaving bare kernels

For your so called 'friend' to pick at.

...

Scraps as a reward for rearing another bountiful crop.

...

While Marcus lounges in your atrium,

******* plump figs,

...

That I have grown,

...

Spending more time in the lavatorium,

Than tilling the soil or plucking and picking.



No, dear Gaius, you can have the work.

Enjoy it with your dear Marcus.

He'd make a great Antinous to your Hadrianus.

...

Together, may the gods see you buggered in failure.

...

For this, I will make an offering of frankincense and myrrh

As I set off for new fields and greener pastures

To ply my trade.



One that you will find wanted in the days and months

To come.

...

I've new fields to plow


Seeds to sow


Crops to reap


And seedlings to grow

...

Like them, dear Gaius, I will thrive under noonday sun,

While you will wilt with your work.



Without me.



Signed,

PERTINAX

As the water falls
I feel my soul reawaken
Colors are brighter
More vivid
Greens coalesce into lush gardens of life
Made more pronounced by the grays of scattered boulders
Whose placement steers the water to lower climbs

As the water falls
I am falling with it
It’s power cleanses my heart
Opening my soul up to muted browns
Possessed by both life and death as leaves turn to soil
That breathes life into the skeletal limbs that anchor the forest canopy
Below Earth’s baby blues

As the water falls
I become swept away
Dragged further from the disconnections
That mute even the yellows of the sun
Pale to that of the myriad mountain flowers drawn from stark purples to contrasting reds
That remind me of both pain and happiness earned on the trail of life
Bruises that paint my battered body with the story of water and the gravity which causes us to fall

Do not save us
For we have become free
While falling