An invisible tether of phantom necessity holds me to it. Like a chain around my ankle, but here I grasp it. Clutch it. Store it. In a pocket, on a desk. It weighs me down, yet I drag it, I bear it, on and on forever, wherever I go. It connects me. Yet because of it I feel the disconnect. More apparent than real. Felt. Breathed. Drumming. Echoing, louder and louder in the vast emptiness that perhaps isn’t even there. The opportunities for connection becoming vast bridges that seem broken, their distant reaches a long past, faint, frizzled memory. Yet only a second from renewal, the spaces between removed.. contact, connection. The chain binds me to this life. The burden I carry.