(A/N: A short, onesided E/C poem, the first I've ever done, so try not to be so harsh on me...

This scene I picture in my head us Erik in Box Five, watching an opera that Christine stars in, with a chess set in front of him. He is pondering his manipulation of others until she walks onstage. The poem changes to her until she glances up at Raoul. The rest of the poem represents Erik's pain, as he breaks the white chess queen, and how he feels he will always be alone.

I mostly imagine this from the movie/musical, though I imagine it could be used from the book as well, as I do use Erik in the poem. I imagine that Erik, as a genius, would know how to play chess as well as he did manipulating those around him, and it seemed a beautiful comparison. He is the master of the chessboard, as well as it's king, and Christine is the ivory queen. The other members of the Opera, he figures them as pawns. But even those so high, the rulers, have loss, and they have pain.

This entire poem is in Erik's point of view. Lines are read in pairs, in couplets.)

The White King

Pawns of a chessboard is all they mean to me

Manipulating those around for what I want to see.

I put two and two together and see how they react,

I control the deeds you do and then escape the impact.

Shakespeare himself once murmured we're all players on a stage,

But he didn't know the act's controlled by this man who holds the cage.

You are all my puppets; I'm the master of you all

And you are all my prey, whether light or after nightfall.

I chuckle at your troubles; your pains, they make me laugh

I'm the one who gives you them! Every move I choreograph

In the Bible, it proclaims Satan appears an angel of light

I gave up my salvation to hear the music of the night.

I'm the demon in your mind; it's in your nightmares that I dwell,

The captain of your life is an angel down in hell.

This is all my game of chess, and my game I always win

And just my pawns, expendable, are all you've ever been.

You may think you can get away, but there's nothing you can do,

No one can ever escape the eyes of the Angel of Doom.

Oh…

And here she comes.

It's my beautiful prima donna, singing with her heavenly voice

The only one of my chessboard who ever made her own choice.

She is, herself, pure brilliance, in sound and in time,

Celestial harmony surpassing angels and still not in her prime.

The Persephone to my Hades; the very music of the spring

It's because of me and me alone that she always will sing.

I found her all alone and I saved her from death

But when telling her I love her, it seems I only waste my breath.

I always though fated linked us forever and a day

But I learned the revulsion in her eyes meant for me to go away.

I gave her my music and I gave her my soul

She took it and she crushed it; never again will I be whole.

The King and the Queen will never fly together skyward

I watch her miserably, and at that moment, she looks upward.

Though so clearly in Box Five my love and my pain blazes

It's at Raoul de Chagny that my Christine gazes.

I fling the ivory queen away, though I know this pain is just

And the carved figure of my angel lays broken in the dust.

She swears she'll love again and then she'll never say goodbye

But to say you'll love again is just another, desperate lie.

As my heart breaks, angels weep up in heaven above

They weep for poor Erik below who never had a love.

This throne above, this play of power, is just a fabrication

I'm just a demon who lies alone, awaiting his damnation.

A pawn of the chessboard is all she'll mean to me

Though queen of my chessboard I'll always long her to be.

H/P