A/N: Written for
Diversity Writing Challenge, b1 - between 15 and 30 lines poem
WIXOSS Bingo: the non-flash version, #190 - slippery
Five Minutes of Remembrance
It's a game with no beginning and no end.
The serpent bites its own tail but doesn't chew and the coin eternally spins on its axis as though there's no gravity to pin it to the ground and no friction to slow it down –
There probably is no friction to slow it down, since the battletop's been smeared with oil and oil doesn't vanish unless it burns and none of them are bright enough or can stay bright enough with the sound of the serpent chewing its own tail in the background…
It's a game that goes on forever even after you reach the end-credits and it's all the post-game's fault. You play and you play and there's no limit to the shadows that rise up from the ashes of your victory until it's a shallow victory and until there's no victory at all but defeat no matter which way you turn
And it's all for a prize that seems so fickle and worthless in the end that you wonder why you throw your entire soul, your entire being, into this game to begin with
But then you watch the rest of the world do exactly the same and maybe maybe you can begin to understand a little of how strong an incense despair can produce now that it's not clogging your nostrils anymore
But it's too late if you've reached the post-game first because by then the decision has been made: you've won or lost and there's no stopping, no turning back –
If there's even a way to turn back once you've entered into the game
And it's not fair, is it? There isn't even a choice about whether or not to enter the game or when to do it or who to play with… Though the last has an illusion at first, like an oasis you think you think you choose to wander towards but then where else could you walk towards in a desert with no direction?
It's not fair but you have to play anyway, play this game, because you're in it and you've already lost something and now you taste desperation, the desperation that will force you to go further than you ever thought you could go and still run into a brick wall in the end because this isn't a maze but a closed room and there's no way out
And you play with all your heart because if you're stuck in the desert, you want the best of it, you want the golden chalice of your memories even if it could make you scream in the darkest deepest despair. You say you don't care and you continue on, you play, but you don't realise there's no winning this game, that that golden chalice is black with burning liquid and it's not even alcohol that'll cloud your mind and numb your soul but acid that leaves ulcers all throughout and they'll burn all at once when the veil's rolled back and you've tasted its true taste on your tongue –
And you think you're playing to win but there's no winning and you'll taste true despair when you lose.
And someone's already shoved you onto the slide and you can only go sliding down
and there's no end.