When all the fuss has faded
like guilt that glides from gloss,
when I’ve pulled back the hair,
when I’ve crept from the clothes,
when my flesh is all that you see
and there is nothing left
to hide the parts of me
I never wanted to be,
Will you…? Will I…?
When my tears come like the floods
with no temperament to temper the tempest,
when there is no laughter to kneel neath,
when I bare no gift to beg you like me
and there is nothing left
of the roles I’ve roped myself into,
of the masks I’ve twisted my face around
to veil my own identity, Will you…? Will I…?
Will you be able to read
the life lived between the lines,
will you see the soul
that slipped within the shadow?
I wrote it down
but ink fades faster than these pains
that have patterned
themselves into permanent
beneath this skin
I’m now unseasonably
and unceremoniously shedding,
scars that parade now in the spotlight,
in the parts of the play
I have been permitted to perform.
But they are scattered
between the scenes,
broken into awkward acts.
When the curtain finally falls
and I cast off the costume, Will you…? Will I…?
Will you understand what it took to get here?
Will you look further than the festering flesh?
I am more than just skin on the bone.
All words and photographs by Damien B Donnelly
From an earlier poetry series entitled Between the Bone and the Broken
Damien B. Donnelly 
“Will you be able to read
the life lived between the lines,
will you see the soul
that slipped within the shadow?”………..just wow!
Thank you. This was a very naked poem but I was happy with how it turned out. We pretend so often and forget how good honesty can be, how much beauty it can reveal 🤗🤗
🙂 so well done!
A beautiful baring of the soul. Who are we? Always searching…(K)
It’s scary but refreshing to tell ourselves the truth, let alone anyone else. 🤗
Have you seen this particular video montage with Peter Mayer ‘Japanese Bowl’ song? It’s really beautiful, shared with me in the last few days by a new follower at my blog. This is where my healings at, and given that you’re also doing well perhaps you’d enjoy this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOAzobTIGr8&w=640&h=360
I’m going check this out 🤗
It is very naked, the questioning and searching, and the many roles we play–but there is so much in-between, as you say.
“Will you be able to read
the life lived between the lines,
will you see the soul
that slipped within the shadow?”
Roles and layers and shadows and lights 🤗
🙂