My Queen

Like we agreed at the outset, one of us would stand outside next to the other’s coffin before it’s about to be lowered.  It’s a little sad too of course. I didn’t want to die so young.  If only we might have logged a few more fancy receptions and backwoods rivers and–I always liked our good back and forths on the days’ events. How we’d once in a while plot an age-appropriate violence toward this global crime or that. Until finally we couldn’t take it anymore and you looked over at me and you said: Can we just say fuck the opioid crisis and global warming for just a sec; eat me now. 

Ya know, speaking of that, and on the bright side of me goin’ tits up a little prematurely, it is your young, drippy puss I get to look up at from this vantage after all. Not some dried up fruit. Not that I mind dried up fruit. It’s yours of course and you’d love my old man balls if the roles were reversed, but let’s face it, who needs that picture going into the next world?

There now, we needed a raunchy respite from all this death and dirt. We were always good at being raunchy.

Ooh, now look at you. Your leg is propped up on my lid that your heels might just puncture. Not before you tip the diggers who are about to shovel however many cubic feet of dirt on me. “Kiss off,” you’ll say, and then you’ll tip them to kiss off. They’ll walk off and wait politely until they’re clear and then unfold the bills. “Shit!” you’ll hear one say. The other will join in: “no shit!” And kiss off they will.

Just you and I now. None of those crocodile tears, either.  The kind dull widows shed. No no no, fuck all that. I chose you for the exact reason that when you cry and play one last time at my coffin, snot would gush out both nostrils.  Your eyes would puff.  You’re a gorgeous and royal mess just this once.

I tried, my love, for as long as I could to check off the daily boxes: work and play and be king.  But then some days got harder, until today.  Today, I’m neither exhausted with, nor pursuant towards, any boxes. Today, as we already planned, one of us would have to don both crowns while the other is, well, how to put this–today the dead box gets checked off, then lowered.

So buck up.  Wipe the salt from your eyes now, keep them dammed up so you can read for me. Do it one last time, then kiss off.  While your fruit is still wet. Yes, that’s right. Just like that. It’s like I can smell you.

There, too, I see leafless winter in your posture.  Oh no you don’t! Pop tall, Queen! Go on now. Clear your throat. Read it to me one more time.

The eagles who soar through the sky are at rest
And the creatures who crawl, run and creep
I know you’re not thirsty. That’s bullshit. Stop lying.
Lie the fuck down, my darling, and sleep.

That’s right, my queen, my most beautiful, intrepid queen. I implore you now as your supine king to keep reading. Keep fingering. ‘Fore those shovels get back.

-Neal