Poetry: The Binding Ribbon By Lucy Martin

The Binding Ribbon

 

Winter arrived with the spite of an exiled monarch,

Crowning the skyscrapers with frost.

They braved the chill together as they stood on the balcony,

The silence between them icier than anything winter could bring.

He was leaving, again. 

She felt the ribbon shrink.

 

Usually she felt that the ribbon tying them together was romantic,

But recently its pull was that of a noose,

Forcing her to swallow her words lest she choke upon them.

Her lungs ached under the weight of all that she’d left unsaid

 

She looked at him and hoped that he would understand,

Forcing herself to speak even as her courage began to fray at the edges.

“I am terrified,” she admitted, and she felt the ribbon ease.

“And I will let you go because I will not

Use this ribbon as a leash.”  

 

The effect was instantaneous.

The agonising tension ceased to be,

The ribbon unraveling into endless lengths between them.

She felt as if it had almost dissolved in tatters 

That sank to the floor between them like the shimmering fall of snow.

 

The ribbon had chosen to bind their fates together those many years ago,

And as she watched him walk away into the fog-filled streets,

She felt, for the first time, that she understood the ribbon

For though she had chosen to undo the bindings of fate,

For the first time in her life, she felt truly known.

 

 

 

 

 

Lucy Martin is an Australian poet whose work explores storytelling, emotional psychology, and feminine interiority through poetic form. Her work is informed by a love of gothic imagery, emotional realism, and modern myth-making. Instagram: @lvmartinpoems