Tether

With this string I shall tether
our ankles together
so, darling, when you go away
I can pull on the slack
and haul you right back;
it’s probably best that you stay.

* * *

When the thread starts to quiver
I feel like I’m with her,
pulling taut by the light of the moon.
And I’m sure it delights her,
the thread pulling tighter,
to dance to her favourite tune,

but this fool starts to wonder
if you have grown fonder
of the distance, the dancing, and dreams.
On her heel there’s a blister
where ’tether had kissed her
and it’s breaking its way through the seams.

It was then that I wavered,
how I wish I’d been braver
and blind to what I came to see;
at the end of the line,
I broke and I cried
on the string that she’d tied to a tree.