The world is my chessboard.

The people are my pawns.

Moved to acquire my needs.

Everyone is just a piece,

In this cruel game.

I play them as I should.

Moving slowly and carefully.

Making my way to the checkmate.

Everyone has a part to play.

Mother and father, the Queen and King.

Brother and Sister, Knights.

Teachers, Bishops.

Friends, Rooks.

All just apart of the game.

Even me, the ruler of it all.

Fate as my opponent.

Conquering all the pieces of the game.

That's all it is.

Just a game.

And I will win!

When it comes to the end

And all my pawns are played

The words will slip off of my tongue.

The words that end it all.

My final command.

Checkmate

Marooned

Vapid beauty of this room
Frothing carpet, ocean blue
One wall me, the other you
What lies between is residue

Scribed on soggy, shipwrecked parchment
Questions asked, time forgotten
Who are we?
What do we know?
Into these questions Summer flows
And thrashes at your Autumn’s brinks
Yearlong they torment my brain
Infringing on every season

If not for the manic scheme
To love and having loved be loved
This correspondence to a distant land
With stars, more numerous and brightly lit
Than my burgeoning highway exit
Would by no means have left my hand

But if, against all odds, it will prevail
Extolling truth’s folly, my sorrowful tale
Quells with reason my groundless pride
At having docked on your passionless harbor
Unloading platonic cargo during our youth’s ebbing tide
Must not create union of body or mind
You swallow my horizon, like the sun twilight
Though, one need not chase that orange orb for tomorrow

In this night without fortitude, lewd humor consumes me
Singing with the mouth on my head and your voice inside
I plunge into darkness
Skimming its silky surface
Before zipping it behind me

Shall I drown, as I have lived?
In vain, my dreams your subjects
Taken for ransom in your heart’s Tripoli
Not surmising recompense, I forfeit this
A note belying resonance
Of my heart’s last echoed throe
One desperate effort, giving up
Feed every vestige to the void
Wading, torso encumbered
Each sullen relic of your memory
Falls to the deep’s frigid ebony
Then, only too late am I cognizant
That my own breath is tribute yet spent
Therefore if I were to float or swim
I’d give you every ounce of who I am
Convince you to relinquish me
From your tepid, spurning sea
Then lying beneath moist underbrush
Slowly, breathe no more