(1)

So, the setup is as follows:

Your mind fucks you over, most of the time via the belief that to fuck you over, it’s un-fucking you for the future. The setup of the game board is that I’m a pawn in a corner with another pawn right in front of me: I’m playing black. My brain’s playing white. From my corner all I can see is white.

There is no one next to me but that doesn’t quite matter, because when have pawns moved to the right or left? The most I’ve done is run when I was two and then get slower and slower and slower until I, impossibly, had backed myself up.

Once you’ve done the impossible, which is survive and move backwards, brazen thoughts are inescapable. What would happen if I slid right, slid left, slid off the board. What would happen if I gave up without being captured. What would, what is, what was, what could should be…

(2)

A lot of things have to do with doors. With entrances and exits.

[ENTER] the lost soul. [EXIT] the yearning child. Out the stage door. The curtains close. [EXIT] all. [ENTER] applause.

A door; an exit & an entrance, a point of hesitation or lack thereof, a paradox. It’s your room so you [ENTER]. It’s the door to the master bedroom so you wait. There’s a difference here.

In front of the floor to ceiling mirror in my dorm, I stand idle and prone by the glass. Entrances, Exits. Some doors sealed shut with white tissue. There were paradoxes here, once upon a time, but now,

there’s a difference here.

(3)

Another one. Talking to yourself, pretending it’s someone else.

It’s not too hard to pretend. Here is the thing about apathy: it is delicate, and it comes in soft waves on the shore. The light bounces off of it until it reaches my eyes and until I’m blinded. The sun slips over the horizon of the sea and I still stand there, unblinking, unthinking, believing the world to have always looked the same: like nothing. Because I am blind, until the waves and sun come again, until someone shakes me hard.

So, I link hands with Someone Else on this hypothetical shore. It feels a lot like my left hand in my right hand over my chest but it also feels a lot better than the corner of a chessboard.

“You okay?”

“I’m still going, aren’t I?”

A whisper. A shake on the shoulder— not enough. The waves lick at our, my, skin.

“Depends on who you ask.”

(4)

On the shore again.

I’ve grabbed me hard. By the shoulders. In a burst of clarity.

“This isn’t love.” And I grip at my shirt, I twisting I’s fingers around the fabric. I is desperate. “That wasn’t love.”

Like from another nightmare, I manage to jolt awake. For a minute I can actually see the beach. I can see the oil spilt over it. There is no shore, no crystal waves. I’m not sure what there is.

(5)

[ENTER] Someone Else; enigmatic figure, imperceptible and indescribable by eye & language (respective of each adj.), through the door.

Someone Else steps under the spotlight and she flips the board over. Pawns scatter down the stage, into the empty audience.

Someone Else: You didn’t ask. But here we are.

Someone Else takes a moment to collect herself.

Someone Else: It wasn’t love. This isn’t love either.

I got fucked over, again; via the belief that I’m un-fucking for the future. There is no shore, no door, no exit no entrance no point of hesitation lack thereof or paradox. The chess pieces have become souvenirs. I was once in a corner and here I am, on the floor, off the stage, imperceptible & indescribable— I believe I’ve escaped. I believe I’ve un-fucked myself.

There’s a difference here.