Love was never a heartbeat. It was the echo left behind after the heart forgot why it was still beating. It arrived wearing another person's face, its hands stitched together from promises that had already begun to rot. I welcomed it. Not because it was kind, but because loneliness knows how to mistake a wolf for warmth. Every smile it offered cast a longer shadow. Every whispered "forever" fed another ghost sleeping beneath my ribs. The thought of love is a clever liar. It builds cathedrals from broken mirrors, then asks us to kneel before our own reflections, calling the illusion destiny. How eagerly we obey. We water flowers that grow from graves, write poems to people who never truly existed, and embrace memories still unborn. Love watches. Silent. Patient. Like a spider waiting in the center of a web woven from hope. It never forces us inside. It simply lets us believe the silver threads are rays of morning light. By the time we understand, the sky has forgotten our ...
They thought the board was simple,
black and white, a quiet war of squares.
They moved with smug precision,
fingers light with borrowed flair.
A pawn, they thought, stood trembling,
small and slow and easy prey.
“A fool across the table,”
Their confident eyes would say.
They nudged their pieces forward,
with laughter in their breath,
not seeing silent footsteps
being laid beneath their chess.
Across the board, a smile appeared,
gentle, calm, and thin,
the kind that hides a thousand plans
patiently waiting within.
A bishop slid unnoticed,
a knight curved through the air,
each move a whispered secret
They were far too proud to hear.
Still, they grinned at every turn,
certain they had won,
never feeling karma’s shadow
creeping square by square, undone.
Then silence filled the board at last.
The smile remained the same.
One final piece stepped softly forward—
and ended the game.
No anger in the victory,
No thunder in the mate.
Just two quiet words lay neatly down:
Checkmate.
Your plate.
© 2026 Gloria Penelope
Comments