Deborah Damage

Deborah Damage was dangerously used,
Complicit in being entirely abused.
With daring, embarking on healing the damaged,
Within a life cycle destructively managed;

By leading her always to nurture the cruel
In order to prove to herself
I’m the jewel,
That can make the difference.
I am the tool
The special, the useful one
Nobody’s fool.

Forgive me my father,
Yet I’m your forgiver.
It’s all of your rigour
I strive to transfigure.
If not to say, violence and downright abuse
Yes I have a purpose:
Your change is my use.

And yet in her victim-hood she was aware
Of some of the terrible price of her care.
And knew in her heart that though comfortable giving
Her total oblation
Replaced her true living.

And sometimes she’d whisper beside her close friend
Prevent me, defend me, can this cycle end?
But when the friend ventured
At some future date
To stand in the track of her oncoming fate,
She pushed her aside with a violent shove.

'Get out of my life cos I just have to love!'

And so on this track
And with no turning back,
She travelled in nightmare
From blank to black
And further and further from flesh and from bone
Left friendship behind her
To live on her own.




Sarah de Nordwall 1995