Water turns on the tide,
roots find ways through the rubble.
Nature is adaptable.

But the body is bound to the bone,
movement moulded to our muscle
and the shadow cannot de deceived

and yet you itch.

You claw at this fleshed reflection
on front of you
and see in its faults
the fraud of its form.

Nature is nurtured by adaption,
not blood tests
or mind games.
Nature does not wait,
is not answerable to anyone.

Skin softer than before,
you paint yourself into a portrait,
waiting to be a person,

wanting to be seen,

not sneered,
no longer sad.

Shapes shift
in clouds crossing,
in rivers winding,
in the bloom breaking into beauty.

But this skin restricts
and these angles
arch out as obtrusive.

Masculine is the mould
now marked like measles
that no cream can quickly cure.

There is an itch.

I know you want to pull
a finer form from this flesh
that no longer fits to your feelings.

The air too stale
within this shape
for it to be any longer sustainable.

Nature is easily adaptable
but you too will find your way into beauty
before your summer is up.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly