The Royal We

We meander hopefully towards our favorite summer spot, delicately hidden under warm, suburban green shadows. Candy’s soft fingertips sway effortlessly across Tom’s war torn grip, and she nurtures his stubble with the ease of her gaze. We have nowhere else to go, but why should we? After all, this deliciously innocent domain was always their truest aspiration. Or at least mine.

Candy unpacks a long, homemade quilt from her picnic basket and spreads out an enormous lunch, much too large for two quiet individuals. Lost among furrowed brows and children streaming through rich autumn breeze, Candy studies Tom as he dolefully picks at her tender concoction. There is no other sadness like the routinization of a once-loved adventure, and I know I’ll miss you.

Soft brown hair grazes boney knees as we both extend our arms backward, propping ourselves up in green blade quicksand. Candy pours him a glass of lemonade but she’s too late; Tom enjoys the way his flask shimmers silver delight in the warm fall sun. We have to leave soon but I don’t know why – the urgency of our youth is failing us and Candy and Tom can’t gaze at anything but the way it’s all going down. And as the sun creeps slowly behind the university I can see our children stumbling about on that cold, sturdy wooden porch – the one we built with your father before he bid farewell for the mud and sand and glistening water rocks of his truest destination. Goddamn, he loved your splintered soul more than I could ever try. But you know I tried.

I move my fingernails slowly along the bone of your neck and you flinch with hesitation. The gig is up and I can’t stomach it. Handfuls of bladey life fail to make this scene any more bearable for the duo, and before long Tom and Candy lie back flat across the world and stare silently into blue white vacuity. Did you ever need my breath, the stuff hiding below bubble baths and cinny toast and the ache of your morning coffee? Have you actually stopped?

Drunk girls grow into drunk men and it’s all on the lawn for all to see, right on schedule for you and I, Tom and Candy. Say my name and I’ll say yours. Tell the little ones about your time treading water in the sea of paved hills and suburban recreation. Tell them how you taught me about dinosaurs and then explain that I’m one, too (as are you, darling). Tell them all of it, for if you don’t I’ll cease to exist and so will you and I simply can’t bear any more reality.

We’re inching closer to smoke and the yellow pages of time, and soon we’ll barely remember the way the Christmas lights twirled sparkling around our seafront lens. The way our ceilings touched the sky and everything was as clear as a foggy, candlelit bath and the way you smiled at me, like I had just picked up a bottle of red. And for all I know we did, exactly, always. Tom and Candy alone in their cabin, cribbage board by a roaring wood fire, wet merlot and deep kisses, nodding off in fresh, dewy vacuous morning.