YEAR 2025 Poem: MMXXV, by Ashuni Lucia Perez

Twenty years after
It first premiered,
I started watching
Rome, the series

Not for historical value,
Or the drama,
Or the sex,
But on account of a recommendation

Of course, all of the above are present
The bloody dictatorship,
The glamor of Cleopatra,
The shiny golden coins

Life then felt brutal but honest
And as Pompey Magnus stared off
toward the coast of Greece,
foreseeing his defeat, and lamented,
“Oh, to be a slave, how restful it must be.”

Either you were someone’s pawn
Or you were playing a dangerous game of chess
To be noble or a man of power in those days often meant
A literal fight to the death

Though today, we have plenty of other problems
They are just packaged up in different paper

While many things could be better, namely
Climate chaos
Human rights
Famine
Water shortages
Raging wars
Xenophia

At least I am less likely to be murdered by a power-hungry friend
Screaming “Et tu, Brute?” in the end
And for that, I am grateful to be
Alive in 2025