P-K4 (let’s never speak of this)

I haven’t spoken to him in
  twenty years.
He must be old now (as I
  believe I will be soon).
He taught me to play when I
  was just four. To us,
  chess was a means of
  communication (for since
  birth, I believe, my father
  and I have been unsure of our
  relationship).
My mother watched us play,
  taking snapshots in the
  background, always calling it
  a foolish game (and she would
  never learn to play).
She has a picture of me as a
  child with a wooden
  knight clenched between
  my teeth (mocking victory).
I never won, though.
He wouldn’t allow it.
Still I returned to the table
  the next day, because it
  was not abuse.
(It was my oxygen.)