Satin Ribbons

By Paula Llorens Ortega

Twice, thrice, until you barely see. Until speech is ruffled instead of silk. At first, it is loose and hanging limply in inconvenience. How troublesome to have to focus more thoroughly; the footage on TV, the hatred sprawled across oxidized streets. How irksome to have to strain your voice, your words tangled to become shrouded in approval. If no one can see your lips move, they can make themselves believe anything else. 

The knots become double. 

Now, they stuff the ears like cotton, giving blissful release. A release from the cries of the suburban cityrails, the echoes of popped balloons and promises balmed in guile. They say you cannot trust your senses, that you must let their expert hands guide yours. Poor, gullible hands of blind faith, letting them mooch you.

Your teeth bite down on it.

You grow accustomed to the disciplined silence. The tongue follows, until lips form a poorly sewn line. As you learned to live with silence and blindness, you believe speechlessness will be easy. No one understood such docility. Why would someone reduce themselves to an enveloped, empty head whilst they still had hands? You said it was because they were ribbons: soft, sleek and a pillow against obscurity. To you, it was the lulling comfort of an infant, along with its ignorant innocence. 

It took months for it to deteriorate into strips of burlap.

Only then, did it turn inconvenient. Only then, did you want to scratch and bite it off, its itch unbearable. Your ears turned raw, throat dry, eyes white. The ribbon turned into a constant plague, your guilt at having remained immobile climbing up your throat like bile. Even if you wanted to remove the strips, you were no longer able to.

Our hands are bound.

By Paula Llorens Ortega