False Dilemma

Love is a game.

Kiss me. Take me by the throat and stab my plans from deep within, then maybe you'll guess my next move.

 

You advance a spearhead of pawns, useless, you say. Amongst them your princess is brutally murdered; pity, she could have become queen.

 

Grip my hair. Pull my face forward so it breathes you, smile so my spine jars; behind the lips there’s always the fangs.

 

There is a pressure in your fingers that tells me you want to let go. but not now, you say, not when first blood has been drawn. Wars end when they begin, never resignation halfway. I will not let you have your prize; you will not let me have my pride.

 

This is how we dance; black and white; false dilemma.

 

There is a brutality to the way you play--very attractive, but I will not risk unnecessarily when I know you are the sort to take a trade of queens. See how you leave your knights for dead? You're too dangerous for me.

 

some sacrifices must be made, you cry, as another bishop falls to a pawn, diagonal. Some, really? We’ll keep playing, and when it’s just you and your king, I wonder what you’ll say in your defence.

 

Capture my castle when your own has long crumbled. My plot sleeps twenty steps into the future; you will never see it. And I will never see yours--is this recklessness or is this a ruse? The squares are stained red, and we are bleeding, bleeding both, yet neither of us will give just yet.

 

why don’t we end this, you plead as if it were a command. But truce always ends; you know this better than I. We are circling. Masochism tango, they call it? I know you could be mine. I’m yours already. But I'll never let you work that out.

 

Some ploys work better than others. Perhaps it’s my fault, for lying. Perhaps it’s yours, for making it so hard to be honest.

 

But my queen glides forth, and your king has nowhere to hide. check,

 

mate. I try not to sound smug.

 

another game?

Author's Note

My intent is to convey heightened emotion. Is there any clumsiness? Do you prefer to think of the romance as a figurative representation of the chess game or the other way around? Stylistic advice?