I hear you crying

from the runway,

as you tried to run away,

I was already off 

a fold on the wings of flying

while you sat there, waiting

and crying,

wishing colour was

no more than a past 

you could turn from.

I hear you crying 

above these clouds 

I am trying to reach 

the other side of,

moving west from east

as you fall south of north,

shivering in a skin 

you cannot slip from,

in a city with a grip 

to quickly crippling,

but geography is not 

morphology, we are bound

to the bones we are born of,

we cannot kill our kin 

to be kinder or simply 

slip from our skin to be whiter.

I hear you crying 

but I was already off

flying, we are the creators 

of our own clouds 

and can only conquer them 

with a calm courage and not 

just a quick comfort

that comes a calling 

in the cold corner

of our own confusion.

I heard you crying 

and wonder 

if I will remember you 

when you have taken to flying?

All words and drawings by Damien B. Donnelly