Girl Chess

Its premise is, of course, to defeat.
Its tactics are vengeance, and humiliations, small and large.
It is patient.
It is charged by and with pain.
It takes what is small and good, and big and good, and
It tears it apart, like picking at bread.
It pushes chests down with the deep pressure of sadness.
It makes wide eyes in a baffled face cry.
It is toxic and pervasive.
It is historical and contemporary.
It is deeply unfair and sadly indelible.
It changes everything too soon.
Its queens are, in the end, the mothers.
Its girls are contorted, but complicit pawns
As they conquer their sisters.