Okay, here's a long poem I wrote to get all these roiling, pent up emotions off my chest. Too many contradicting events have happened all at once -- that's why I got so angry, frustrated, without the freedom nor power to salvage the situation for myself. Hopefully this poem will explain it all, and also serve as a concluding closure to this fiasco. I never wished for it to happen -- why, I was so excited and happy watching the B division finals last night. The match by Wan Yin and Wang Zhen Wei, the long-drawn game between Lum Sum Kok and Chi Yi Nan. I felt the heat of their play -- Lum had a cannon and a horse in the endgame, versus Chi's single horse and double advisors. Though it was an "old man's game", I retained the patience to watch it out till the final move. Who says I didn't wish to be in the competition still, sitting at one of the tables playing my final game? It doesn't matter which ranking -- the excitment of the finals would always live in my memory. Yet all these events coming together... saw my withdrawal from the competition. Sigh.....

Here's the poem. Interpret it however you will. That's the beauty of Art.

Poem:
The Crucifixion

Too many coincidences have happened the past week:
the stoppage of my Chinese chess competition
because of a charge from the military camp
that saw me confined for a long, long dreary week;
a phantom attacker r-i-p-p-i-n-g my name apart
on an online forum for chess lovers
claiming my cheating in the competition.

People read, started believing his lies, & thought
my withdrawal from the competition
was because of the judge's
long finger of dismissal.

They were wrong. But no matter
how many dozen, thousand letters of self-defense
I typed, putting my real name out in the open
braving the critic-fire of disbelievers
would anyone believe me?

Would anyone deduce
(and here I apologize for the lack
of space for Imagination, but crude precision)
that Fate had put me at a crossroads,
cooped me in camp while strangers
crucified my name out in the open?

Oh I may only rant, and rave, and sing my innocence
yet unless the cheat can come out
and show his rodent face of cowardice
my name may never be resurrected
in the crucifying eyes of the cold public.

Or could the gradual power of silence
speak my innocence with time? Presumed deeds
slowly forgotten, & put away, like another loss
in the chess competition, the one
that knocked me out from the crucial finals.

Thank you for the experiences, everyone. I had fun in those four short games of chess in the tourney. :)

Sincerely, Dan