BRUTUS
A single bulb hums in a narrow room. He opens Shakespeare, prophets of doom.
BRUTUS
By EJ Moon
A single bulb hums in a narrow room.
He opens Shakespeare, prophets of doom.
Caesar strides in, too proud to see,
Knives flash bright in the Roman decree.
Et tu, Brute?…the words still burn,
Bleeding the page with no return.
Not marble halls, not empire’s fall,
But friendship lost, the worst of all.
A girl, quite like the myth, once stood between their days.
Now silence leers where trust decays.
The ghost he made with silence wide,
The text unsent, the truth denied.
Guilt hums low, metallic this hour,
Her heat leans close; yet he feels it sour.
No candles of seduction now, No hum of lust.
Just the phone’s cold gleam,
casting his face in a defeated dream.
He grips the book as if it accused,
Pages torn, the verses bruised.
Whispers rise between each line:
“Are you with her right now? The fault is mine.
I did not tell you of the rest of them in time.”
Breath stutters sharp, the floor grows near,
Spine meets spine, the end draws clear.
Morning cuts through blinds that seep,
Over the book and the boy could not sleep.
The phone beside him buzzed anew.
On the screen a new friend, a new enemy, words buzzing,
“you too?”
Beware the Ides of March!
Love you all,
EJ