Start. Stop.
Repeat.

Start. Stop.
Return. Rerun.

We are movement broken down
Into stages,
On stages

Persons performing their pieces
In spaces,
Persons in pieces
Often in the wrong places.

Start. Stop.
Release.

Start. Stop.
Rethink. Reread.

We are short stories bound in books

Looking for readers,
Looking for worship,
Looking for our worth,

We are sentences unseen.

Start. Forget. Remember. Forget. Stop.

I was a hand being held
In hope,
In haste,

I held a hand while thinking of another
Since forgotten.
Then remembered.
Now lost.

I remember more
Of what didn’t happen
Than I do of what did,

Subconscious is subversive,
Conscious does not always question.

Stop. Start.
Lay down.

We are the truth of our lies,

We lay lie between what we believe
And what we know to be reality.

Stop. Start.
Throw out.

We are clothes cut and cluttered,

We have forgotten to be sustainable,
To be recyclable,
We have been pressured into polyester.

Start. Stop.
Repeat.

Not retrain. Not relearn.

We are beings bound to repetition

We take foolish steps
Into fallen footprints
we haven’t understood,
we haven’t forgiven,

Be become the ghosts
That cloaked our childhood.

We have not been thought to think.

Stop. Start.

Rely.
Repeat.

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly