When she played chess

When she touched the pieces

With her little fingers with unpolished but neatly-cut nails

The chess board was growing into something nebulous

Something that melts down and evolves into a private journal

Where only the two of us are privileged to write on

Or a telephone circuit throughout this country

On which our conversations of two years still lingers

I told her, chess is similar to life

Unprecedented events can occur in a moment

But there always seems to be chances of recovery

She laughed like a kid who has just learned a new beautiful trick 

When she made a wrong move

Maybe she laughed to show the world that she is still fine

Despite the mistakes being made

Maybe she laughed because she was with the person she wants to be with

I took her knight, she took my bishop

Then she said I have three pieces out of the game and she has four

Which means she is losing?

It was then struck me if we were making each other lose in a very limited time of life

My eyes migrated from the board to her staring eyes

To let them pass through every vein I have

To record them for every suffocating evening she will be away

Before I finished absorbing sights of her into my living memories

She had a good excuse and she left

The game, unfinished

Pieces of chess, intact

With neither of us lost