This Cruel Game Never Ends

My heart is pounding in my chest and I can hear my ragged breathing, the computer reflects itself into my eyes until they shine the same as the fire on the screen. 

As I watch the world fall apart from my room, I see everything at once. 

There is a dimly lit room. Flickering candles glimmer around a dark cherry table of glossed over wood. Men and women sit around it, shining like the sun with their jewels and flashing smiles. But there are knives and guns under those jewels and that’s not a smile. It’s a baring of teeth. 

On the table is a map, lying there like fresh kill. And these people . . . They are the wolves. Ambitious and cunning and cruel. They all play to win the sickening game in front of them. A man with fading hair and eyes darker than the ocean, reaches out a hand and wipes a line off the map. Hundreds of people scream in rage and agony at the move. Rain begins to trickle down the window. 

Another man, one of the few with no jewels at all seems hardly to belong as he makes an attempt to replace the line. 

More screams, more rage. Another move and another and another and another. Until the only thing that still remains discernible is the rain outside of the terrifying room. It’s hitting harder now in splashes that explode on impact. 

The man with the dark eyes draws a curtain on his side of the room. A new game piece, a pretty little girl with a voice like an angel and braids ribboned with blue appears on the board. The rain pounds still harder but no one can hear it now.The girl is very sweet and pretty indeed. 

Another cry, another scream. Violence at the table, violence across the map. 

Some sit and watch from afar, afraid to play. 

The rain is flooding the cobblestoned streets outside. 

Still, they play the sickening game. 

It has been almost three years and no one has left the table. 

They can’t. They must win, they think. 

Why can’t they see? Why can’t they see that no one will ever Win the game until they stop playing.

 

This poem is about: 
Our world

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