🔗🔶✅

Not to win.

Not to compete.

Not even to socialize.

It’s something else — a sacred routine.

A trench against the world.

Those who don’t play will never understand.

The table is the altar.

The cards, doctrine.

The bar, a temple.

There’s no small talk here, no dead time, no room for sentiment.

You play, or you get out of the way.

The first one to arrive doesn’t say hello — he shuffles. Cuts. Deals.

The second one lights his cigar.

The third brings a line ready to sting.

The fourth sits down and throws the first jab:

“You gonna cry again today, or are you here to play?”

At the table, everything is laid bare —

Resentment. Vanity. Memory. Cowardice.

If you lie in cards, you lie in life.

If you bluff here, you fake love too.

No one plays for money.

You play not to surrender.

Because outside, it’s raining. Or you’re unemployed. Or your kid left.

Or football’s gone to hell. Or politics stink.

But here — at least — you command your cards.

When it ends, there’s silence.

Few say goodbye.

And yet, they all return.

Because outside, there is no game.

And inside — even if you lose — at least you played.