Always Losing

In a café's hush, two lovers sit as pawns, at dawn's closed gate before hope dawns. They clutch their marriage paper, creased and thin— proof against arrest for love's small sin. The morality police come with boots of dust, their eyes demand: "Show papers or be crushed." A wedding ring means little, vows mean less, when breathing love becomes a crime to confess. Her headscarf's blue; she pins it desperately tight, hiding bruised skin beneath the white. They stapled fabric to her bleeding brow— to seal the hair, the freedom disallowed. We play this game, move piece by careful piece, each breath a claim on borrowed, fragile peace. The board is cold, the watchers circle near, each step is marked by whispered, choking fear. In chess, defeat can end the noble fight— a bow, a handshake, walking from sight. But here, the losing leaves its burning stain, checkmate becomes a lifetime's whispered pain. A pawn moves forward, small and slow, past whispered threats where shadows grow. They watch each move, each stolen breath, we play this deadly game against our death. Yet in the silence of wood touching wood, the pieces speak of what they could: "We are not pawns to break and fall— we are the breath that outlives every wall." The board may crack, the night may close, yet hope's small flame beneath us glows. One step, one square, one sacred vow to free the love we guard, the dream we long to see.