the chain

Let's call it the chord.
Thats what my friend calls it. That thing. That connection. That sometimes sudden, sometimes slowly built little line of a bond that seems to exist mostly between those... intimate, usually in some meaningful way.
It's not love, which is something fully different. If not discreetly removed. It's not commitment. But, it's something to do with the ties that bind.

You know what I mean, you meet someone, you CONNECT, and you can feel them out there. You get involved, it's like this little glowing elastic string tugging at you. Sometimes you feel the slack when things aren't right. When their attentions are diverted, when they stray, that chord, there is hanging there, even more visible and even in the way, and you miss the tension. Sometimes you feel a sharp tug. Almost like they are thinking of you. Sometimes you are told to give it a sharp pull and they let it go or clip the line. You are alone. On your ass. Who wouldn't be angry and resentful?
Usually you only fully note that absence when they have extended the line to someone else, it seems. There you sit,hilding a frayed end. Or maybe, mysteriously, they managed to severe the connection with only the sllightest imprint. A ghost of a memory. This can be hardest of all. They aren't out there anymore. You wouldn't know how to really find them if they were. And then you stumble upon them, find youself searching for some scar or evidence that you ever existed, ever mattered.

And mostly, this can be wonderful and beautiful and disarming and comforting. Nothing feels better than an obligtion you WANT to fulfill. That tug as you are strolling upon your day yanks directly at your heartstrings. There you are buying an eggplant and suddenly the pull makes you swoon. Sometimes you give a tug back and feel the tight tension and it's heady. Like when you are thinking thinking thinking about them and reach for the phone and it rings and guess who it is?

And sometimes it's viciously cruel. All you want is to be free and the chord keeps tripping you and you finally stretch it and yank it until it loses elastic and gives you some space to move on and then they tie another knott and YANK, just as you are about to throw the line to someone else.
What do you do then, this nagging pull at your back, searching for a sharp enough blade to severe the tie,to finally let them know that they can't yank your chain anymore, contemplating how you are then going to hide that silly little tail dragging from the leftover slack, like an umbilical chord you wish would finally wither, die, fall off in the dust.