held captive

at first you don't feel
the thin tethers
that hold you, bind you.
the new roots, growing,
thickening with years.
how hard it is to move now,
to leave this place.
you weren't born here.
no blood shed
for any of it.
no family land, no reason
to stay at this or any age,
and yet, you can barely
lift a leg in another
direction. the vines
have twisted around your
wrists, your ankles.
strangely, even your heart.
it would take a cataclysmic
event, like love,
to move you now.