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Where am I now?
Where am I now?
Poetry
This poem is about what happens when attention replaces meaning. It turned out that the kid started playing to be seen instead of playing for the game itself, this also explains why his girlfriend broke up with him. Wins begin to feel empty without an audience, and when the attention fades, so does the desire to play. Now the kid is not a kid anymore, he is an old man himself and the poem ends with the old man returning to say what the speaker already knows: the mistake wasn’t losing chess, it was losing the reason for playing. This leaves the question: how is the old man still alive to the readers.
At first it was normal
Like finally being seen.
Like all my quiet hours meant something
Outside my own screen.
They said I was calm
They said I was “built for it”
Like I never tried
Like I never had to fight for it
But then something changed
I learned what “brave” looks like on a screen
And slowly I stopped asking myself,
I started asking what would be seen
Then the noise moved on
No drama. No goodbye
Just new names, new boards,
And my name drifting by
I’d win, then check the phone
No message? then it’s thin
A win without a witness
Didn’t feel like a win
I sat down anyway
Pressed the clock. Same chair
But the game felt distant,
Like I wasn’t really there
And that’s when i saw him,
Again by the standings wall
The old man, calm as always,
Like he knew it all
I somehow knew what he would say
That’s why I didn’t look up right away
“You stopped playing for the game,
All you wanted was fame”
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