checkmate

i understand that you can’t—you shouldn’t—decide

how you feel about someone instantaneously

there should be conversations—plural—signifying gestures

and rhetoric badminton with quadrupled profuse sweating

because they’re just really really cute

a good friend of mine equates it to chess

whilst another could do without the games altogether

and i think i’m pretty okay with playing

lining up my pieces, polite with just enough juvenile

because yeah, maybe, i still don’t know

but the way he, looks at me

are people supposed to look at you that way?