Dear Fate,

Since the day I was born

exposed to the empty canvas called life,

that I was never in control of,

we’ve been playing each other.

Locked in a stalemate.

I play as the mighty king;

I’m constantly in a check

by your rooks, your knights, your queen.

I remember when

I asked my mother what dreams were.

She couldn’t give me an answer.

No one could.

And so I never had any.

You have checked me in so many rounds

I can barely keep track.

 

First you threw her into my life.

Unexpectedly she grasped my world in her hand

and took great care to wrap her fingers around it.

She didn’t know.

She didn’t care.

Never ceasing to let go

I pleaded and begged.

She resisted.

Taunting.

Affection.

Pine.

Her grip strangled by raw heart

and crushed whatever will I had left.

Score: Fate-1 My Heart-0

 

Dreams? Ha!

I began to learn the definition.

Disappointment.

 

Second I was almost mended.

The pain never left my eyes;

I began to slowly heal.

Whether it was false or not,

I don’t know.

And then love deceived me again.

I hopelessly chased after something

that could truly never share my world.

For she was too good for this universe,

but in her eyes she didn’t know it.

In her eyes she was average and dull. Alone.

Giving up on life as I was.

But in them, I saw the first glint of sunlight.

Unbeknownst to her.

But it was not to be shared with me.

I can only look from afar.

Unnoticed.

Score: Fate-2 Hope-0

 

Third my gift of anger.

The way it burns everyone around me

only to be scathed myself.

My dad weeps for innocence lost.

His nickname is misery.

My mom dreams for the day she can leave this world.

Depression is passed down

generation to generation.

My house is a battlefield.

Pitted against each other.

And ourselves.

Score: Who cares?

 

Fourth the gift of loneliness.

Being in a crowd but not.

They talk to me

as if I barely understand.

I just exist.

Breathe the same air they do.

They see through me.

Score: I cannot keep track any longer.

 

Fifth for taking my rose colored glasses off

at the ripe age of three.

As I looked at his coffin,

I was never the same.

Queen without her king.

Mother without her daughter.

This family

is surrounded by a dark cloud.

 

Six for spreading that dark cloud throughout the world.

So it touches each and every individual.

Seven billion

is a large number,

a large storm.

 

This cloud has touched me for so long.

And dear Fate

after all that has happened,

this is what you leave me.

This cloud.

Emptiness.

So I say to you:

Check. Mate.