the royal we

We would leave the doors open for the dogs, inevitably tracking in mud and weather on days when it rained. Raccoons would raid the kitchen, and scrub jays would clean the crumbs off the counter. The world was wild outside, and why not allow some of this bliss to mingle with our dishes and our pots? We would walk along the seaside, watching the tides and storms. The starlight would waver, then it would shine so bright as to peel the paint off the porch. We were in love. We were never happy.

I watched the skies curl and fold with clouds from beneath my aura of wood, dirt, and labor. Black widows trickled off the aged redwood planks as I shifted another burden, allowing gravity to take its share of the work. Layer after layer of discarded lumber lifted, to reveal small shifts in an ecosystem sundered yet again. Slug and snail and silverfish, beetle and daddy long-legs and one sly Portia (if you can forgive my vulgar vulgate) that lived up to its english appellation and jumped away to the safety of the mere possibility of being trodden upon. I was slick with sweat amid cool winds and passing gawkers, feeling the lash of allergy and the tweak of the as of yet unknown damage done last week to my right wrist. Despite the pain, I kept moving the bulk of each lift to my strong side, such as it is. As ever, I play the game I must rather than the game I wish after.

I do not plan well, or think deeply. I tend to paint myself into corners that I have to fight my way out of. This isn't only tiring, but it means that I inevitably get paint everywhere. And never a drop cloth in sight. I am also a slow learner, and more than a bit stupid where it counts. So I have repeatedly made the same missteps and mistakes, even to the point of committing more than a few of them as on-purposes. The little losses have added up, and I am all the wreck my fury, foolishness, and debauchery would have me be. I know very little, but I do understand myself and my methods. This isn't the razor's edge, this isn't the slow burn: it is the slow circle the far end of this learning curb. No hope and no love isn't never. Comfortable in my tenses, I am singular. My we is mostly royal, my throne mostly longing and lingual. The rest is shifting from the past and future, the work of this ungainly present.