The Victor

You always win at checkers

Always first in cards

Always the king of scrabble

You deftly unscramble

The muddle inside my heart

While I pull the wrong suit

And gratefully root myself

Into your arms and ask you

Without ever asking you aloud

To just keep buzzing your voice

Against my skin.

You’ve always been the first to finish puzzles,

The last to let the towers fall.

You are a prodigy at bingo

And you’ve always handled victory well.

But when I ask you to convince me

That this is not a flaw,

It’s just a square that takes me two steps back,

It’s just a snake,

It’s just a jail card,

You don’t know what to tell me.

You only ever land on ladders and

You only ever skip through “GO”.