Endgame

The board was there before me.
Maple and ebony, squares too clean for this filthy world,
glowing like a promise in a child’s eyes.
I never asked for it, but it was mine.

Opening Moves

I advanced my pawn
no thought, just motion.
Shove the small piece forward, pretend I know the rules.
Nobody warns you. They say “sharp,” but I felt only wonder.

Father’s voice was cedar smoke and rust,
telling me to castle, stay safe, shut up.
Mother’s hands, once warm, now scrubbed raw by regret.
I built my fortress, walls of polite smiles.
I believed them. For a little while.

First Captures

Life is a gambit. You lose a piece,
act like you planned it all.
My mother’s gentle susurrus faded to the sound of tears
nobody bothered to catch.
My father’s roar sank into a slow hiss,
like a broken boiler in winter.
Knights fell. They called me reckless.
I called myself brave.

In hallways, I saw girls with venomous mouths and sweet perfume,
teachers with glossy eyes that saw nothing,
and I sacrificed pieces of myself just to be noticed.
I told myself losing was progress.
I told myself anything to keep moving.

Midgame

The clock hammered my skull.
We all wanted the center:
jobs, cash, love, or some cheap stand in.
The board was a battlefield of false starts and shattered illusions.

I lost a knight to pride.
Quit a job because the boss reminded me of my father.
I had enough of men who see love as weakness.
I sold out the bishop, convictions tossed aside for bigger paychecks,
numb laughter in bars that stank of scotch and petty triumph.

Then she arrived, Caro Kann calm,
holding me in her gaze like I was worth something.
Steady hands, no fear of scars.
I fell in love with her strategy.
I thought maybe I had finally found my queen.

The Long Game

The pawns grew fewer, each loss echoing in my gut.
Mortgages, bills, birthdays I forgot
all pushed me into corners I never meant to stand in.
A slip here, a misstep there, and suddenly you are pinned.

The son I fathered barely knows my name.
I stare at him from across the board,
wondering if he is the piece I wasted or the legacy I saved.
The queen I loved stands distant, reading the lines on my face
like a prophecy she never believed.

Zugzwang
I freeze
She does too
No move feels right, every path laced with regrets.

Endgame

Only kings left, battered and alone,
staggering on a board scarred by everything I ever did wrong.
My hands tremble. They used to be sure, controlling my fate.
Now they fumble like the last grasp of a dying man.

Time sneers at me, a final opponent playing black.
He is patient. He always has been.
I realize I was never as clever as I thought.

The board empties of hope,
stained squares, battered pieces,
no second chances,
no forbearance.

Checkmate.
He leans across the board, centering his king.
I raise my eyes, but cannot meet his gaze.
My king fell down. 
Everything I fought for: ash.

The pieces rattle back into their box.
The board folds shut, swallowing my story.

Someone else will play now,
and they will not know my name.