Series

BETWEEN THE BONE AND THE BORKEN, PART 8, MY BECOMING

/ deuxiemepeau / 3 Comments

 

 

Running

faster than feet can find footing,
forced to face up, catch up,
stand up, turn up. Running

through streets cluttered
with collisions I’ve already
crossed, with bunkers
of bones already broken, with
senses still shackled to skins
already shed, layers lost in
houses I thought were homes
but they were just illusions;
deliciously devious enough
to delude as time turned,
keeps turning, keeps taking
and I keeping running

looking, always,
for the rest,
for the rest of me, for a rest.
Running

backwards now
through a city of shadows
that have shifted in the seasons
I sought out other shores, other
stimuli, other skins to slip beneath.
Back now to before, but more
different, more difficult,
more deceiving,
catching sight of myself
in half lights and side streets,
catching sight of the sides
that I am no longer in this older
render. Running.

Wondering
is this it? Is this enough?
Is this who I am? Running

towards something
seen once, but now forgotten,
a suggestion in the shadows
of these streets but with a hope,
however fragile, lying between
the bone and the broken,
that these are just augmentations
on the byway to my becoming.

All Words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/damien-donnelly-2/my-becoming

 

 

 

BETWEEN THE BONE AND THE BROKEN, PART 7; EGO, I GO

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I feel you twitching
beneath the skin, itching,
supple suggestions
slipping into sinew,
a subtle sonar
to syncopate the sinus, incapacitate,
to alter the ego;
ego goes to id, super slipping
on its own judgement,
but if the ego goes, I go; ignite darkness.
I feel you pulsing,
pounding pressure
beneath the parts
still running,
still looking,
still trying to get
to that place that is implausible,
that peace
that paradise promised,
the parasites banished
and medication cannot manage.
I feel you turning
from tender to taunt,
tweezing threads from tissue
soaked in too much tears,
tears torn by talons
that have twisted
their way through
the ego’s dream,
the super ego’s nightmare
and revealed themselves
as victorious within the darkness
of those
internal desires;
id goes on. I blow out.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

BETWEEN THE BONE AND THE BROKEN, PART 5; UNDER A FOLD IN THE OCEAN

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Under bedclothes,
under darkness,
under the weight
of all that once was,
I twist and turn
through folds
that blankets
can’t seem to find
freedom from.

Under. Weight.

Under water,
undercurrent,
under pressure
at the deep end
of denial,
I twist and turn
through waves
the sea
can’t seem to
ship back to shore.

Under. Pressure.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

 

BETWEEN THE BONE AND THE BROKEN, PART 3; CLAW

/ deuxiemepeau / 1 Comment

 

I shift
in skin
that no longer
stretches
to meet movements
not always malleable.
I twist
and turn
through thoughts
in a mind
not always compliant
with concerns of control.
I claw like the crow;
doused in darkness,
fusty feathers flapping
through air
I can’t clasp,
in a body
I can’t bandage,
through these
thoughts
I cannot suppress.
Weightless now,
I weigh less now,
I wait less now,
am patient less.
I shift and stir
and twist and turn
in a coffined canister
of contraction,
distraction,
as I claw
through the miles
and those fading smiles
like feathers falling,
black breath billowing
over a body
that cannot cradle comfort.

All words and photographs by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud;

 

BETWEEN THE BONE AND THE BROKEN, PART 2; SHEDDING

/ deuxiemepeau / 6 Comments

 

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

Audio version available on Soundcloud:

BETWEEN THE BONE AND BROKEN, PART 1; HEAVY. DUTY

/ deuxiemepeau / 2 Comments

 

Heavy. Duty.
Responsibility
is weighty.
Weighs on the burdens,
on the burdens that mount.
How the distance mounts over
the months. The years. The tears.
The fears. The identities.
The identities we partake in,
we personas we put on,
we pretend to,
we play with,
the personalities
we scrub away to start again.
Once again. Heavy. Duty.
The responsibility
of owning
the ownership
of always ending up
on our own. Heavy.
Shedding parts of ourselves
like snake skin, too thin to shake.
Thin are layers we’re left with,
the leachers leach their lot
and leave us with little.
Little are the layers now.
Lighter. But Heavy.
The Duty.
Responsibility is heavy
in the hands of just one.
In hearts not always held.

All Words and photos by Damien B. Donnelly

Audio version available on Soundcloud: