#paulmescal

She had loved him for as long as she could remember.

Not in the way the poets spoke of, not with grand declarations or gilded promises, but in quiet moments, in unspoken understanding. Yet love, unreturned, had a way of wearing one down.

They had grown up together. From the moment they met, there was something about him a quiet intensity, a sharpness in his gaze, and a mind that always seemed to be far ahead of everyone else. He and he is was a bright individual sharing her interests.

They laughed together, played together, shared secrets no one else knew. But as time passed, their bond began to shift. The weight of obligation and loyalty to the crown and his twin brother Caracalla weighed him down.

He began to pull away, confining himself away in his champers or swimming in alcohol and women. And she, always the quiet observer, found herself left in the space he once filled with warmth and trust.

It wasn’t sudden. No, it was gradual, like the slow movement of the seasons. She waited for him to let her in, to show her the part of him he kept so carefully guarded. But he never did. And somehow, she kept hoping. Hoping that her Geta, the little boy she met once and her first love would be back.

Now, with ink-stained fingers and a heart too heavy to carry any longer, she wrote to him one last time before she was gone forever, leaving him to drown in his newly found position as emperor.

Dear Geta,

It’s been more than a year now. You and Caracalla have been ruling with an iron fist. You’ve become unrecognisable, a different boy than the one I met years ago. I have missed you. I mourn you Geta as if you are no longer here.

There’s still a dull ache accompanying the thought of you, your face, your voice, which I’ve started to forget, and the quiet, almost imperceptible laugh you’d release under your breath every time you found something amusing or challenging. But it was always subtle. A half-breath. A signal, you could say. Never a full smile, always a smirk, a fleeting exhale that might resemble a laugh. But never a carefree expression. Never. You never let me in that way.

You entrusted me with things you’ve never shared with anyone else. Your words, not mine. And yet, you refused to offer me something so insignificant, or better yet, something so simple as a genuine smile. Was I not enough? A patient listener, but never the one being heard, am I right?

Anyway, you’re resilient. You don’t need it. That’s what you thought, right? After our discussion in your champers, the moment my expression shifted, became guarded, distant, cold.

You were surprised to see that I had now built the same walls you’ve always carried. You were surprised to see that maybe I wasn’t feeling as much as you assumed I did. You were surprised to witness the weight of your actions etched into my face. My face, a testament to your naïveté and impulse.

Impulse: a sudden, fierce, and unrefined urge to act without reflection.

I am your mirror, your unrequited desire, and the one thing you curse fate for bringing into your life. Sometimes, I hope you stop what you’re doing to think of me of what it could have been, or what it couldn’t and wouldn’t. I’m almost certain you do, but not for me. Not to mourn us, but for yourself. For your impulse.

Because I believe, no—I know—you regret it. But your pride, your ego, as always, holds you captive. Because you’re infallible, and your carefully constructed plans, your ambitions, are the only ones that matter. You see emotion not as strength, but as a distraction. Desire as a vice, and love as a weakness.

What is there left for you? Your obsession with perfection and validation will destroy you just as much as you claimed love will destroy me. Or perhaps your plight is far worse, you’re cursed. Cursed in a cell made of gold and power.

Love is not merely a fleeting emotion it is a way of living. A path to something greater than the cold perfection and calculated order you so desperately cling to in your world. It is a way to either freedom or enslavement.

The difference, my love, is that love, seen through a different lens, is beautiful. Perfection and calculation, no matter how meticulously you arrange and observe them, are prisons. Your prison. Your undoing.

Goodbye Geta,

I love you.

Y/n