checkmate white black, slide board fallen piece. plastic in my hand, hollow inside. a row of pawns perfect, but soon to move and become like holes in paper from a pen jabbed through. checkmate, the queen is still there, zapping about any which way.
you told me
i was your black queen
even though i felt like
nothing more than a
pawn
you were my king,
my silver throne,
my reasons for
living
and
breathing
they asked
what i saw in you
and i could not
answer them
so please,
allow me this
sacrifice
and pretend
that you love me
just this once
( i’ll be gone soon )
F
Checkmate. That’s a word for people who play chess. I feel as if I am going to sit down to my two exams tomorrow and each one will say “checkmate!” before I even begin. I am so screwed. I cannot even begin to tell you how stressed out I am right now.
Someone lay shackled on the ground with his arms and feet restrained. With his head bowed from exhaustion, he let out a mournful cry. From his position, several wounds became exposed to the waning rays of the moonlight that passed through the open hole above him.
A door opened. The man looked up in a flash, his eyes dark with rage — all the pain suddenly gone.
The man, dressed elegantly, sauntered inside the cell. Bringing a chair in front of his prisoner, he sat down and smiled.
“Get out.” The voice was raspy and dry.
“Why? We’re just getting started.”
“What do you want?” It trembled with fury.
“What do /I/ want?” The man moved his head closer to his prisoner. “I want revenge. I want to finish this game.”
“What game?”
“Come on,” he snapped. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve made your move. Now it’s my turn.”
The prisoner’s eyes became wide with fear. He knew what this man was capable of doing.
A phone rang innocently in the room, its sound echoing like a haunted scream.
“Have you done what I asked you to do?” The man was smiling now, enjoying the look of horror on his captive.
“Affirmative.” The voice at the other end was devoid of emotion. “They’re dead.”
“Good.”
As he ended the call, the prisoner had bowed his head down once more. He knew.
“Checkmate.”
In a few moments, the sound of a door closing was heard, along with the stifled sobs of the man inside the cell.
It is when you know that you have been beaten. The long reckless minutes or possibly hours or intensified seconds have you moving strategically on tiny squares alternating in colour. Checkmate is the true finding that you have lost. You were outwitted by intelligence.
jane
checkmate.
things are ending. the game is over. nothing you can do can change anything. what will happen is no longer up to you.
you are done. you no longer influence this game, this move, this time.
checkmate.
gracegirl
Checkmate. You win. There’s no more moves and a king topples to his side. You planned for this moment; saw it coming five moves ago. You kept your poker face when your opponent made a fatal mistake. Checkmate.
Why does it feel like you lost?
rmvangilder;
The king had his family away from him, in case something like this happened. A preparation for the worst case scenario. The army pounded at his door with a battering ram. He could hear the shouting and screaming of a million men dazed in blood-lust. His trusted guardians did what they could to hold them. His trusted advisers told him to flee. The king held his ground, donning his battle garments. As the first splinters of wood started flying at him, he drew his sword.
“Gentlemen, today we die as men.” He said before the final crack blasted the castle door out of its hinges.
Onix
Checkmate. The ultimate form of game over. It’s not enough to defeat your opponent, no. You must use tactics and cunning smarts to hand your opponent a defeat. Checkmate means that you’ve thoroughly followed through with your plans to smite your opponent.
Brock
“Checkmate!” My opponent exclaimed. I looked down at the chessboard in dismay. I had really thought my strategy was better than it turned out to be in this game. Well, I guess there’s always the next round.
sitting across the table from my best friend. we are playing a round of chess. the is fall. the wind blows through the creaked window that was broken from the storm last night. he says “checkmate”
Nicole Travis
Exhaustion held her head in an eternal checkmate, denying her the chance at another game, let alone victory in the first. She could not sleep until she worked, but she could not work until she slept.
Lately, that’s what living feels like also it’s been raining a lot lately but I don’t mind get diamonds tossed into my hair even if they’re temporary and cold.
Checkmate. I wish I could Say I’d won, but I didn’t. You always win this game, you’re always the stronger one, you’re always the one who knows exactly what their doing. I’m just following along doing what I think will help me win, but in the end, we both know it’ll be you again.
Ali
checkmate ron weasley he was so brave and strong. I wish he could be my boyfriend with his red hair and freckles. Knight in shining whatever. Grey’s anatomy is coming back soon and I can’tt waittttttt. Check. Yes. Done. I don’t know what else to write about other than the fact I suck at checkers and chest peckwell needs a new name because it’s ridiculous oh wait I don’t think it’s real, yeah…..
Amanda
checkmate. i’ve got you right where i want you. you may think that you’re in control most of the time, but damnit if i don’t have my eye on you and my defenses in check. check. check yourself before you look at me again. don’t look before you leap, but leap with all of your might, god damnit.
melissa bee
One day Charlie played chess with his older neighbor Frank. Frank lived alone and didn’t smile much. The only thing that brightened his day was a chess board. Charlie was Franks only friend. They played for hours.
Potato Skins
I made my move, swiftly cutting across the dirt. I charged in his direction, knocking him over. The hard-packed ground underneath our wrestling bodies. Holding him tightly, I whispered in his ear, “checkmate.”
He started teaching me just as third grade was ending. My dad and I played every day. He’d come home from work and 30 minutes later, we’d be playing. There would be 4 or 5 games within an hour… longer if he felt like stretching it out a bit. I lost every game that summer and every day through fourth grade, but I got better. The games went down to one or two, for an hour or hour and half. I kept losing, but I knew I was getting better because Dad started buying books on strategy. He hid them under his chair in the livingroom. He’d use a new attack against me for the week, maybe a little longer and I’d try to break through. If I couldn’t figure my way through after several weeks, I’d sneak a peak in the book and find out to break through it. I still remember Daddy’s face when I stonewalled his Stonewall Attack! In fifth grade the boys laughed when they found out I could play. They picked on me. Mr. Swyder, my teacher, said to make up they had to play me. One at a time, I played the three boys. The first game lasted about 15 minutes; the second about the same. But when Paul wanted to play me, it all changed. He didn’t smile. He tried the sneaky trick on me to beat me in a few moves, but I knew that trick and the next one he tried. Recess was over, but Mr. Swyder said we could keep playing the game. The whole class was watching us. The game went on for nearly two hours. I figured I had him in only three more moves when he dumped the game over. No one really said much about it. I felt really bad for Paul. The next day, he wanted to play again and he had notes on a paper. I knew that attack, and I managed a stalemate before lunch ended. We did it again the following day, new attack, new stalemate. It was Friday when I finally got him in a bad spot. He made a mistake and I zoomed right in. He finally resigned politely, his king being gently placed face down on the board. I would have had him in checkmate the next move. I told him it was a good game. He told me I was a good player. By next week, he found something new to make fun of me about. I managed my first stalemate with my dad a few weeks later and won my first game before that school year ended. Dad never beat me in a game again after that. We were always stalemates or I’d win. Our games decreased in frequency and length to long intense games, but my dad would crack up laughing, surprised; he was proud I beat him and a little sad, too. I miss playing those games with my dad. I’ve never looked at a chessboard since without a smile.
He runs his hands over the rooks, the bowed heads of the pawns and the eternally screaming visage of the knight’s horse. He knows he has the upper hand. It was checkmate before he even made his first move.
Lee-Lynn stood by the water, looking out over the jagged rocks as the waves crashed against the dock. Someone was calling her name, but she couldn’t quite hear them. Maybe she didn’t want to. The sun was just beginning to set, and the sky was painted a shade of coral unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
Maybe this was her paradise. A place away the bustle of the city. Somewhere she could call home without a nagging feeling at the back of her head telling her it just wasn’t where her heart was.
“Lee-Lynn!” Said the voice, obnoxiously.
“Huh?” She replied.
“I’ve been calling you for ten whole minutes!” The boy next door, with the crooked smile and too many freckles met he eyes.
“What do you need then?” She asked in an exasperated tone.
The crooked grin was back.
“Checkmate.” He said proudly, glancing back towards the chess board on the lawn behind him.
Lee-Lynn glared at him, a spark in her eye.
“Not on my watch.”
Helena
Though the person may checkmate his opponent, there always remains a chance for his fallen adversary to rise; this is where the real game begins, to reach the top and stay there.
I’m not giving up. This is a moment of stillness; do not mistake weaknesses in clean clothes as something easily bested. Mud and shit won’t spoil me. I’m speeding up. This isn’t enough for you to trip into checkmate and wait for the storm to reach over my head. Bring on the rain, I’ll race you.
I never learned how to play chess, or rather, I never bothered to learn chess. Or is it checkers? I suppose it doesn’t matter; it’s all very much the same to me–using pawns to protect yourself, killing off others for your gain. It’s disgusting, really.
Alexandria
i think of chess nerds. like this kid sam at my school…………………………………………………………………………………… or some random sex term
Lenalia
You were a master chess player. You knew the game so much better than I could ever hope to, and you played it well. Your fingertips brushed each piece, taunting me, looking at me with this crooked smile and laughing at my anticipation. You moved the piece. I saw where it was going. And then it was over. Checkmate.
My grandpa and I used to play chess every Wednesday night when he came over. He’d always let me win, except for the occasional times that I arrogantly told him not him. “Checkmate!” I’d call out gleefully. “I’m going to win!” I loved playing chess, but that was years ago. Today, I still see my grandpa, every Wednesday night, but we no longer play chess together. I miss our Wednesday night chess dates.
At the heart of my kingdom I will no longer bother to contemplate my nemesis. Nor will I defy that which is supposed to belong to me. At the heart of my kingdom, I find you. Center and square. Stoic and silent. Waiting for me. At the heart of my kingdom I will always be me, as me as I always will be.
Cheryl Wu
This was becoming pointless; Jack rubbed his forehead, focusing the pressure in between his eyes to the bridge of his nose. He’d been sitting in the same position trying to think for at least twenty minutes—which felt like seven hours—with little to no success. This the foremost torture of a true artist, all this ability and not a drop of creativity to spare! His mind was drawing blank after blank and it was getting more annoying than he could stand. No pranks, no injuries caused, and no contact from his “employers” in weeks. This school was sucking the soul right out of him. Before he knew it he might actually start being a normal teenager and, frankly, that was something he just refused to stand for.
He tried scribbling some jokes, something to throw the stupid campaign business in to a tangle, starting another fire in the powers building… all of which ended up in balled up scraps on the floor of the study room excepts for a few stick drawings of classmates in compromising predicaments and two of the jokes. At least he could still rely on finding himself unbelievable hilarious to himself before he simply frowned and calmly flipped the table he was working at on to its side. He sighed, leaning back to balance on two legs of his chair; eyes cast down on the messy room in front of him. “Well, that didn’t help at all.” Jack knocked the back of his head against the wall repeatedly. “Please, anybody, save me from this abysmal cavity of boredom and dry material.”
This was becoming pointless; Jack rubbed his forehead, focusing the pressure in between his eyes to the bridge of his nose. He’d been sitting in the same position trying to think for at least twenty minutes—which felt like seven hours—with little to no success. This the foremost torture of a true artist, all this ability and not a drop of creativity to spare! His mind was drawing blank after blank and it was getting more annoying than he could stand. No pranks, no injuries caused, and no contact from his “employers” in weeks. This school was sucking the soul right out of him. Before he knew it he might actually start being a normal teenager and, frankly, that was something he just refused to stand for.
He tried scribbling some jokes, something to throw the stupid campaign business in to a tangle, starting another fire in the powers building… all of which ended up in balled up scraps on the floor of the study room excepts for a few stick drawings of classmates in compromising predicaments and two of the jokes. At least he could still rely on finding himself unbelievable hilarious to himself before he simply frowned and calmly flipped the table he was working at on to its side. He sighed, leaning back to balance on two legs of his chair; eyes cast down on the messy room in front of him. “Well, that didn’t help at all.” Jack knocked the back of his head against the wall repeatedly. “Please, anybody, save me from this abysmal cavity of boredom and dry material.”
He stared across the table at his opponent, disbelief clear in his eyes. How had she done it? How could she? Did she not realize the implication of her move? The aggressive nature? What was she thinking?
She stared back at him with a triumphant smile. She knew very well what she’d done, what it meant. She was the one who’d suggested the match, after all. It wasn’t her fault he was so bad at the game.
The game had lasted for hours. But it was nothing compared to the game they’d been playing for years. She held the Queen above the checkered board, hesitating for no other reason than to try her husband’s patience. He leaned on his hand, pretending to be more concerned with the nighttime that showed nothing but shadows out their living room windows.
Ann
The day engages me enough to fight the thoughts I know are true:
The affections, the desires that my heart still has for you
But the distractions of the world last me only through the light
Alone in the quiet, I am conquered by the night.
The end of the road. The end of the line or game, no way out and no way to reverse or go back and change what has happened. Backing yourself into a corner without seeing what you are doing before it’s too late. Remorse and feeling powerless.
Samantha
“checkmate!” he yelled as he finally defeated me in chess. My game had always been top notch, but I liked him, so I let him win anyways.
there’s always a better move, don’t play me
no matter what you do it don’t phase me
knight A6; don’t take it, cause baby i’m going crazy
clash of the titans. the king died for his queen
but the board fell apart at the seams
and the queen fell along with the kingdom in not-so-quiet screams
“Checkmate” he says to his long time best friend.
Chess has always been they’re favorite past time, but to them it has always been more than just a game.
It’s a symbol of there loyalty, no matter who lost to who.
And there we stand, am I in checkmate? Where you are silent and I am stone, and just our hearts beat in time. Perhaps this feeling is not solely the right angles of these monochrome checkerboard squares, maybe there is a muddy ruddy gray that just blends all this confusion together. For we could stand, just lips apart, and I could wish you to read this love in my eyes, but you and I both know that there is more between us than just the breath of wind that howls and swirls. I read the signs day after day with nothing but a solitary sigh. No, not checkmate, stalemate, as we wait for a hand to move us together or break us apart.
checkmate white black, slide board fallen piece. plastic in my hand, hollow inside. a row of pawns perfect, but soon to move and become like holes in paper from a pen jabbed through. checkmate, the queen is still there, zapping about any which way.
you told me
i was your black queen
even though i felt like
nothing more than a
pawn
you were my king,
my silver throne,
my reasons for
living
and
breathing
they asked
what i saw in you
and i could not
answer them
so please,
allow me this
sacrifice
and pretend
that you love me
just this once
( i’ll be gone soon )
Checkmate. That’s a word for people who play chess. I feel as if I am going to sit down to my two exams tomorrow and each one will say “checkmate!” before I even begin. I am so screwed. I cannot even begin to tell you how stressed out I am right now.
Someone lay shackled on the ground with his arms and feet restrained. With his head bowed from exhaustion, he let out a mournful cry. From his position, several wounds became exposed to the waning rays of the moonlight that passed through the open hole above him.
A door opened. The man looked up in a flash, his eyes dark with rage — all the pain suddenly gone.
The man, dressed elegantly, sauntered inside the cell. Bringing a chair in front of his prisoner, he sat down and smiled.
“Get out.” The voice was raspy and dry.
“Why? We’re just getting started.”
“What do you want?” It trembled with fury.
“What do /I/ want?” The man moved his head closer to his prisoner. “I want revenge. I want to finish this game.”
“What game?”
“Come on,” he snapped. “You know what I’m talking about. You’ve made your move. Now it’s my turn.”
The prisoner’s eyes became wide with fear. He knew what this man was capable of doing.
A phone rang innocently in the room, its sound echoing like a haunted scream.
“Have you done what I asked you to do?” The man was smiling now, enjoying the look of horror on his captive.
“Affirmative.” The voice at the other end was devoid of emotion. “They’re dead.”
“Good.”
As he ended the call, the prisoner had bowed his head down once more. He knew.
“Checkmate.”
In a few moments, the sound of a door closing was heard, along with the stifled sobs of the man inside the cell.
. this again
It is when you know that you have been beaten. The long reckless minutes or possibly hours or intensified seconds have you moving strategically on tiny squares alternating in colour. Checkmate is the true finding that you have lost. You were outwitted by intelligence.
checkmate.
things are ending. the game is over. nothing you can do can change anything. what will happen is no longer up to you.
you are done. you no longer influence this game, this move, this time.
checkmate.
Checkmate. You win. There’s no more moves and a king topples to his side. You planned for this moment; saw it coming five moves ago. You kept your poker face when your opponent made a fatal mistake. Checkmate.
Why does it feel like you lost?
The king had his family away from him, in case something like this happened. A preparation for the worst case scenario. The army pounded at his door with a battering ram. He could hear the shouting and screaming of a million men dazed in blood-lust. His trusted guardians did what they could to hold them. His trusted advisers told him to flee. The king held his ground, donning his battle garments. As the first splinters of wood started flying at him, he drew his sword.
“Gentlemen, today we die as men.” He said before the final crack blasted the castle door out of its hinges.
Checkmate. The ultimate form of game over. It’s not enough to defeat your opponent, no. You must use tactics and cunning smarts to hand your opponent a defeat. Checkmate means that you’ve thoroughly followed through with your plans to smite your opponent.
“Checkmate!” My opponent exclaimed. I looked down at the chessboard in dismay. I had really thought my strategy was better than it turned out to be in this game. Well, I guess there’s always the next round.
sitting across the table from my best friend. we are playing a round of chess. the is fall. the wind blows through the creaked window that was broken from the storm last night. he says “checkmate”
Exhaustion held her head in an eternal checkmate, denying her the chance at another game, let alone victory in the first. She could not sleep until she worked, but she could not work until she slept.
Lately, that’s what living feels like also it’s been raining a lot lately but I don’t mind get diamonds tossed into my hair even if they’re temporary and cold.
Checkmate. I wish I could Say I’d won, but I didn’t. You always win this game, you’re always the stronger one, you’re always the one who knows exactly what their doing. I’m just following along doing what I think will help me win, but in the end, we both know it’ll be you again.
checkmate ron weasley he was so brave and strong. I wish he could be my boyfriend with his red hair and freckles. Knight in shining whatever. Grey’s anatomy is coming back soon and I can’tt waittttttt. Check. Yes. Done. I don’t know what else to write about other than the fact I suck at checkers and chest peckwell needs a new name because it’s ridiculous oh wait I don’t think it’s real, yeah…..
checkmate. i’ve got you right where i want you. you may think that you’re in control most of the time, but damnit if i don’t have my eye on you and my defenses in check. check. check yourself before you look at me again. don’t look before you leap, but leap with all of your might, god damnit.
One day Charlie played chess with his older neighbor Frank. Frank lived alone and didn’t smile much. The only thing that brightened his day was a chess board. Charlie was Franks only friend. They played for hours.
I made my move, swiftly cutting across the dirt. I charged in his direction, knocking him over. The hard-packed ground underneath our wrestling bodies. Holding him tightly, I whispered in his ear, “checkmate.”
He started teaching me just as third grade was ending. My dad and I played every day. He’d come home from work and 30 minutes later, we’d be playing. There would be 4 or 5 games within an hour… longer if he felt like stretching it out a bit. I lost every game that summer and every day through fourth grade, but I got better. The games went down to one or two, for an hour or hour and half. I kept losing, but I knew I was getting better because Dad started buying books on strategy. He hid them under his chair in the livingroom. He’d use a new attack against me for the week, maybe a little longer and I’d try to break through. If I couldn’t figure my way through after several weeks, I’d sneak a peak in the book and find out to break through it. I still remember Daddy’s face when I stonewalled his Stonewall Attack! In fifth grade the boys laughed when they found out I could play. They picked on me. Mr. Swyder, my teacher, said to make up they had to play me. One at a time, I played the three boys. The first game lasted about 15 minutes; the second about the same. But when Paul wanted to play me, it all changed. He didn’t smile. He tried the sneaky trick on me to beat me in a few moves, but I knew that trick and the next one he tried. Recess was over, but Mr. Swyder said we could keep playing the game. The whole class was watching us. The game went on for nearly two hours. I figured I had him in only three more moves when he dumped the game over. No one really said much about it. I felt really bad for Paul. The next day, he wanted to play again and he had notes on a paper. I knew that attack, and I managed a stalemate before lunch ended. We did it again the following day, new attack, new stalemate. It was Friday when I finally got him in a bad spot. He made a mistake and I zoomed right in. He finally resigned politely, his king being gently placed face down on the board. I would have had him in checkmate the next move. I told him it was a good game. He told me I was a good player. By next week, he found something new to make fun of me about. I managed my first stalemate with my dad a few weeks later and won my first game before that school year ended. Dad never beat me in a game again after that. We were always stalemates or I’d win. Our games decreased in frequency and length to long intense games, but my dad would crack up laughing, surprised; he was proud I beat him and a little sad, too. I miss playing those games with my dad. I’ve never looked at a chessboard since without a smile.
He runs his hands over the rooks, the bowed heads of the pawns and the eternally screaming visage of the knight’s horse. He knows he has the upper hand. It was checkmate before he even made his first move.
Lee-Lynn stood by the water, looking out over the jagged rocks as the waves crashed against the dock. Someone was calling her name, but she couldn’t quite hear them. Maybe she didn’t want to. The sun was just beginning to set, and the sky was painted a shade of coral unlike anything she’d ever seen before.
Maybe this was her paradise. A place away the bustle of the city. Somewhere she could call home without a nagging feeling at the back of her head telling her it just wasn’t where her heart was.
“Lee-Lynn!” Said the voice, obnoxiously.
“Huh?” She replied.
“I’ve been calling you for ten whole minutes!” The boy next door, with the crooked smile and too many freckles met he eyes.
“What do you need then?” She asked in an exasperated tone.
The crooked grin was back.
“Checkmate.” He said proudly, glancing back towards the chess board on the lawn behind him.
Lee-Lynn glared at him, a spark in her eye.
“Not on my watch.”
Though the person may checkmate his opponent, there always remains a chance for his fallen adversary to rise; this is where the real game begins, to reach the top and stay there.
I’m not giving up. This is a moment of stillness; do not mistake weaknesses in clean clothes as something easily bested. Mud and shit won’t spoil me. I’m speeding up. This isn’t enough for you to trip into checkmate and wait for the storm to reach over my head. Bring on the rain, I’ll race you.
I never learned how to play chess, or rather, I never bothered to learn chess. Or is it checkers? I suppose it doesn’t matter; it’s all very much the same to me–using pawns to protect yourself, killing off others for your gain. It’s disgusting, really.
i think of chess nerds. like this kid sam at my school…………………………………………………………………………………… or some random sex term
You were a master chess player. You knew the game so much better than I could ever hope to, and you played it well. Your fingertips brushed each piece, taunting me, looking at me with this crooked smile and laughing at my anticipation. You moved the piece. I saw where it was going. And then it was over. Checkmate.
My grandpa and I used to play chess every Wednesday night when he came over. He’d always let me win, except for the occasional times that I arrogantly told him not him. “Checkmate!” I’d call out gleefully. “I’m going to win!” I loved playing chess, but that was years ago. Today, I still see my grandpa, every Wednesday night, but we no longer play chess together. I miss our Wednesday night chess dates.
At the heart of my kingdom I will no longer bother to contemplate my nemesis. Nor will I defy that which is supposed to belong to me. At the heart of my kingdom, I find you. Center and square. Stoic and silent. Waiting for me. At the heart of my kingdom I will always be me, as me as I always will be.
This was becoming pointless; Jack rubbed his forehead, focusing the pressure in between his eyes to the bridge of his nose. He’d been sitting in the same position trying to think for at least twenty minutes—which felt like seven hours—with little to no success. This the foremost torture of a true artist, all this ability and not a drop of creativity to spare! His mind was drawing blank after blank and it was getting more annoying than he could stand. No pranks, no injuries caused, and no contact from his “employers” in weeks. This school was sucking the soul right out of him. Before he knew it he might actually start being a normal teenager and, frankly, that was something he just refused to stand for.
He tried scribbling some jokes, something to throw the stupid campaign business in to a tangle, starting another fire in the powers building… all of which ended up in balled up scraps on the floor of the study room excepts for a few stick drawings of classmates in compromising predicaments and two of the jokes. At least he could still rely on finding himself unbelievable hilarious to himself before he simply frowned and calmly flipped the table he was working at on to its side. He sighed, leaning back to balance on two legs of his chair; eyes cast down on the messy room in front of him. “Well, that didn’t help at all.” Jack knocked the back of his head against the wall repeatedly. “Please, anybody, save me from this abysmal cavity of boredom and dry material.”
This was becoming pointless; Jack rubbed his forehead, focusing the pressure in between his eyes to the bridge of his nose. He’d been sitting in the same position trying to think for at least twenty minutes—which felt like seven hours—with little to no success. This the foremost torture of a true artist, all this ability and not a drop of creativity to spare! His mind was drawing blank after blank and it was getting more annoying than he could stand. No pranks, no injuries caused, and no contact from his “employers” in weeks. This school was sucking the soul right out of him. Before he knew it he might actually start being a normal teenager and, frankly, that was something he just refused to stand for.
He tried scribbling some jokes, something to throw the stupid campaign business in to a tangle, starting another fire in the powers building… all of which ended up in balled up scraps on the floor of the study room excepts for a few stick drawings of classmates in compromising predicaments and two of the jokes. At least he could still rely on finding himself unbelievable hilarious to himself before he simply frowned and calmly flipped the table he was working at on to its side. He sighed, leaning back to balance on two legs of his chair; eyes cast down on the messy room in front of him. “Well, that didn’t help at all.” Jack knocked the back of his head against the wall repeatedly. “Please, anybody, save me from this abysmal cavity of boredom and dry material.”
He stared across the table at his opponent, disbelief clear in his eyes. How had she done it? How could she? Did she not realize the implication of her move? The aggressive nature? What was she thinking?
She stared back at him with a triumphant smile. She knew very well what she’d done, what it meant. She was the one who’d suggested the match, after all. It wasn’t her fault he was so bad at the game.
“Checkmate.”
yeah,checkmate..I lose again..what else is new?
The game had lasted for hours. But it was nothing compared to the game they’d been playing for years. She held the Queen above the checkered board, hesitating for no other reason than to try her husband’s patience. He leaned on his hand, pretending to be more concerned with the nighttime that showed nothing but shadows out their living room windows.
The day engages me enough to fight the thoughts I know are true:
The affections, the desires that my heart still has for you
But the distractions of the world last me only through the light
Alone in the quiet, I am conquered by the night.
The end of the road. The end of the line or game, no way out and no way to reverse or go back and change what has happened. Backing yourself into a corner without seeing what you are doing before it’s too late. Remorse and feeling powerless.
“checkmate!” he yelled as he finally defeated me in chess. My game had always been top notch, but I liked him, so I let him win anyways.
there’s always a better move, don’t play me
no matter what you do it don’t phase me
knight A6; don’t take it, cause baby i’m going crazy
clash of the titans. the king died for his queen
but the board fell apart at the seams
and the queen fell along with the kingdom in not-so-quiet screams
“Checkmate” he says to his long time best friend.
Chess has always been they’re favorite past time, but to them it has always been more than just a game.
It’s a symbol of there loyalty, no matter who lost to who.
“we still friends?” “Check, mate.”
And there we stand, am I in checkmate? Where you are silent and I am stone, and just our hearts beat in time. Perhaps this feeling is not solely the right angles of these monochrome checkerboard squares, maybe there is a muddy ruddy gray that just blends all this confusion together. For we could stand, just lips apart, and I could wish you to read this love in my eyes, but you and I both know that there is more between us than just the breath of wind that howls and swirls. I read the signs day after day with nothing but a solitary sigh. No, not checkmate, stalemate, as we wait for a hand to move us together or break us apart.