You will get burned.
I’ve never liked games.
I suppose I was destined to lose,
because you were the one holding all the cards.
I’m hopeless when it comes to calculation.
Which is perhaps why I could not adequately
quantify the risk.
If only I had called your bluff
instead of raising the ante
adding my heart to the pot.
Maybe it was vain of me
to think that beginner’s luck
would set me apart from the rest.
Call me a little blind,
because I failed to see that I was
just another meaningless pawn.
Shame on me!
I willingly gave you every clue
that you needed to piece together the puzzle.
Stephanie in the conservatory with the knife
in her back,
wielded by the hands of the one person
she always knew would be on her team.
I may have thought I was
breaking the rules,
but you rewrote them before I had that chance.
And so I fold.
You win.
But,
“I am not your consolation prize.”

poetry