A Flower Will Bloom Where a Corpse Lays

Spring was always my favorite season. 

  It starts when the rain melts the snow and ends when the last drop dries in the concrete under a midday sun. The babes sprout from their mom’s essence and walk their first steps, swim their first cold currents, flap their tiny wings.

  I wasn’t meant to cry my first tears right at its beginning. The turn from the deathly cold white blankets into the lively hopping of pollen and birds chirping was not mine to claim at birth. 

  No. 

  When February came, mother waited for me achingly, but I had no intention of leaving. Maybe it was warm inside. It was safe, it was nice, comforting to hear her humming lullabies to me as she pet her belly. But I stayed. I wanted to see the weeds sprout from the ground. I wanted to see the bear leave the cave with its cubs. I wanted to search for a four leaf clover in the green forests.

  I was born when Julius Caesar died.

  The ides of March were symbolic for many in Rome and after. The omen followed the legend like a stain growing in his white tunic through his life and death. He wished for grandeur, he wished for growth. He wished for victory and adoration. I wished to walk among the meadows and run with the stray dogs through the fields. I pet every single one I saw, I called to every cat I could spot hiding in bushes. I yearned for nature to love me like Caesar yearned for Rome. The Conquistador and the Explorer. The Dictator and the Plebeian. Confidence and Comfort. Ambition and Acceptance. Two sides to the same golden coin, except my side was made of simple copper, and I loved its color the most.

  I’m the descendant of Gauls and Romans. I am the future he built, the story he half wished to tell. I am the product of his endless raids in search for purpose, conquest, control. He fabricated a blood connection with Gods and I wanted nothing to do with them. He died with winter, and I was born with spring.

  The nightmare of a dictator is empathy. Sweat runs down the brows of those who work tirelessly to silence the noise constant and abhorrently deafening of those yearning for change. The young ones see the empty world messed up and push the change they believe will save them. Julius Caesar was the premonition of the End that loomed over Rome. But when they killed him, like some sort of ironic Greek Tragedy, they sealed their fate.

  All Empires fall. All winters end. The cycle of power will continue for as long as the cycle of nature does. The man reaches for power and dies betrayed by those eager to stop him, and the child is born drowned in love with no desire to become anything more than a flower.

  No knife shall pierce my back. No grass shall be made into a crown. The dragon is asleep.

  I was born an omen.