Thoughts on "the game"

The Chess Game you Play...

I see the silhouette of many women, standing rigidly on the chess board. Each of them standing exactly where you placed them, not daring to move from their position. They are faceless, only shadows of what they must have originally looked like when you took them full of life and color, because that is what you said you were.

Now, their path is being predetermined by the man with the large hand that will occasionally come in to the game and move one of them, as he sees fit. You, with your oversized hand, you reach in and take one of the faceless women from their tender footing on your chess board, and you move them to the next space, as they fear that this will be the place they are finally knighted.

I sit, almost in a meditative, happy state, totally unaware of the scenery around me that seems to be made up of endless black and white squares. I look up peacefully, completely convinced that the plucking hand dropping down with force, is an indication of being “chosen” and therefore good. With my eyes still closed in blind trust, I am moved too. Startlingly I realize, in the reflection of the cold marble floor where I sit on black squares, I now have no face either. We are just shifted around, as the strategy requires, to gain what is needed for the next play and to serve our purpose as the calculated casualty that will result ultimately in your safe Check Mate. Who is the one, the one left standing, that is ironically the winner, after the rubble of your war on people ends in her not being your check… "mate?" How is this considered a "win" and when do we get our faces back?

I wonder, given your strength in the game, how you would hold up, confined to a cold marble square, with bodies falling all around you for the sake of the game? I wonder if your chess pieces are all women because they are the only ones strong enough to endure the game and still maintain faith that they will be the last one standing? I wonder if they are women because somewhere in the devising of a life of chess turned jousting, that you were convinced we were just pawns and therefore disposable? I question how I got pulled into the game and became a piece.
I spend my time on this game board, thinking of the many mistakes I must have made in making my position venerable to be overtaken. When does the game end? When you have collected enough pieces or when you have eliminated them all?

I can’t seem to remember the rules.

Creativity is the willingness to express emotion and the ability to explore it without perfection.