Te Amo, Alberto...

You Always Win

You say it’s just luck.
That the dice loves you.
That fate favors your grin,
Your fingers,
The way you tap the Ludo board is like you own it.
And maybe that’s true.
Because even when I roll a six,
I still lose to you.

You always win.
You won the moment you walked in
Before the first token moved,
Before the game even began,
Before I realized how fast you’d undo me with a glance.

You always win,
Because you won my heart first.
And really,
How am I supposed to focus
With your beautiful face across from me?
Who wouldn’t lose
When your eyes say mine,
When your smirk pulls the ground out from under logic and strategy
I forgot the rules.
I forget revenge.
I forget everything
Except the way your laugh settles something in my bones.

Maybe I lose on purpose.
Maybe I just want to keep playing.
Because when you beat me,
You gloat like a god,
But you always end up in my arms
By the last move.

And if this is love
This table,
This game,
This slow undoing of pride and walls
Then let me lose a thousand times.

Let me lose
If it means watching you smile
With victory in your chest
And softness in your eyes.

Let the board be ours.
Let the tokens be laughter and touch.
Let the dice be days
We roll forward,
Blind and bold.

Let me play with you in the morning over tea,
In silence,
In giggles,
In everything between.

Let me play you
On bad days,
On stormy nights,
When nothing makes sense
But the way your hand reaches for mine beneath the board.

I don’t care who wins.
Not really.
Because I already did
The day you looked at me like that,
The day you leaned in instead of walking away,
The day you said, let’s play
And never left the table.

So if this is the game,
Let it never end.
Let us reset, replay, and relearn,
And love again.

I’d play you for a lifetime.
Because every round,
Every roll,
Is another chance to choose you.