The game board sits upon four sturdy legs,
Elegantly swirling at the tips.
Each corner caves in,
Inviting strangers into its dreary home.
They diverge downward
Towards a snare of repeating woven designs.
The slick, pristine wood winks under the basement lights.
Tiny moons glisten every few inches,
Marking the way for a clear shot.
Fuzzy red felt purrs as it nuzzles against touch.
From a distance, the contraption looks brand new.
Each ball sparkles, newly polished.
The wood appears to glimmer,
Yet a closer look reveals scratches.
The balls have smudges and scuffs,
Tainting the original, bright tints.
The well-kept mat of fuzz secretly hides lint and stale crumbs.

The game commences with an explosion of color and collision.
Planets revolve wildly.
Rings of maize, crimson, and maroon spin rapidly.
This scene spawns from a random glop of chaos.
The center of the table’s universe, the cue ball, shines a bright white.
Through this Big Bang, each planet scatters to its own orbital.
As the game passes, the sun’s gravity bounces around the other orbs.
Some stay on the mat’s Milkyway,
But other are plunged outside of time and space,
As black holes swallow entire celestial bodies in one quick gulp.

Why do we play this game?
We confine possibilities to our 8 by 4 box –
All of which we can see and feel.
We live with a black ball of death residing at the center of our lives.
He does nothing, simply looming about,
Symbolizing impending doom –
The end of Life’s game.
We focus far too much on when our life will nudge the mystic ball of misfortune.
We should instead focus on that white light of hope
Because the cue ball, the sun, the ball of life, is a mover.
He shakes up our circumstances
Coming into contact with all sorts of different objects
That change the trajectory of our existence.
The cue ball is everything,
So why do we focus on nothing?