Chess In A Dream

By Mia Huerta

Let me make this clear:

This is for survival.

Her goal is to dispatch the rival king.

She can no longer abide by him

Because he threatens every drop of her livelihood.

Her subjects, her meager fortune, her reputation, her will—

All are but trophies he waits to claim.

For he has never been denied a thing from birth.

He does not lose a game. He is perfection incarnate, thinks he.

Each waking hour is spent sucking marrow from bone

Sucking plans from brains

Sucking energy from a rapidly emptying well.

Every word from her lips is an act of excruciating intention

And every word from his is an act of lethal violence.

And it is a clashing of swords invisible to those outside the loop—

And it never ends

And it is quiet.

In the world of slumber, she dreams sweet things.

The flowery nectar of triumphant relief.

She dreams of his exposure, of a seizure of power

wherein somebody finally tells him, “No.”

Someone even a king must bow down to.

She dreams of such authority seeing her.

Recognizing her.

Rescuing her.

Alas, she goes unrescued.

She dreams of holding conclave with the High Queen

The mother of the King

His doting, dearest defender

And for once being capable of swaying her

Of finding her compassion and striking it like gold from the mine.

She is the one woman he respects.

The one woman who can bend his inflexible mind.

To see her recognize the silent atrocities

And at last experience the reckoning of what she’s wrought,

Amending her failure.

But she’d need to admit her imperfection for that.

She dreams even of sneaking inside

And slitting his throat.

He reduced her to nearly nothing in her mind

And now she wields that nothingness as a mantle.

Not a single guard would see her;

She would be free forever.

But she cannot.

She loves her kingdom far too much

And to throw herself away and put herself at risk

Is an unbearable cup to drink of.

Awake!

She is awake now

And she is a million people in a million places.

Somewhere, a woman fears bringing home a soda

Because she already bought a coffee this morning and He will judge her if he sees both cups.

And she is Her.

Somewhere, a toddler dies in a car

Because her father left her in the scorching heat

And the mother decides to stay.

And she is Her.

Somewhere, someone utters “Boys will be boys,”

And the person who vented clenches her fists

And nods.

And she is Her.

Somewhere, someone utters “But you’re a guy

You can’t be a victim,”

And shame overcomes his entire being

And he is Her.

Somewhere, a woman watches her husband get high as a kite

And dreads when the switch will flip and he becomes mean.

And she is Her.

Somewhere, a man tells a man that his friend’s wife deserves her cancer

And his own wife is unaware,

Only knowing that the two couples aren’t friends anymore.

And she is Her.

Somewhere, a carnivorous plant snaps up a bug

And the bug doesn’t know she is an Exyra moth

so she doesn’t feed on its insides

And she is Her! Overandoverandoverandover

They are unseen they are blamed they are unrescued!

They dream sweet dreams.

This is for survival.