There are straps that snake around our curves and constrict. Well worn things, flaking and ancient, but no less capable. Easily loosed, should we so choose, the sinewy thing no longer distinguishable from our limp frames. Once, a chance was seized before it passed, and it was as it should when one grasps such a thing. Once, I saw tree that had swallowed the balustrade about it, but it's us, now, who've been hedged in by the palisade that commands, "only this, and nothing more, nothing more." How feeble does one grow, useless limbs despoiled even of its muscle's memory. Hope, dream, and other such mighty trope, once vital and now vestigial, even they've forgotten their legs. Could it be that but one heave of the chest, one deep breath, would be enough to slip the weight of this restraint? But it is more common, and much simpler, to pinch one's bated breath.