Thursday 11 December 2014

I held a god in my arms.

I had a dream last night that I had a child. I looked into this newborn baby's face to find my own, but different. I picked out the similarities, the parts of me. He had darker skin, but his nose and his mouth were mine. I looked at him and knew that the world was different for me now. Everything I loved and held dear was now a distant second.  Everything changed in that moment. I was me, I was the child and I was my own father holding me and looking at myself. I cradled the child softly.

Later, the child talked to me, it held conversation. After a few moments I knew this was odd. I asked him how he could talk. “I get my smarts from my mother.” he said. “I get my crudeness from you”.

I knew, as I held the child again, that he was fine and ready and needed less of my help and protection. Then I thought about all of the things I held dear before his birth and realised they meant far less to me now.

Wednesday 16 July 2014

16 07 14

There’s a woman sitting, facing me. Staring through me as she chews her sleeves and moves slightly. Erratically.


One of the many cheap ‘everything you can imagine for almost nothing’ shops on Walworth Rd, I’m buying a hand blender which I was directed to after mime and sound effects.  The woman faced the huge opening to the shop asI walked in. There is no doorway in this place, just a shutter. Her face is a map of scabs and sores. She stands close, just behind me as I attempt to pay. The cashier, new, is trying to work out how much the sale is with no price on the box. I tell her three times. As she does this, the young woman with scabs attempts to sell her a Casio watch. The cashier laughs when the owner won’t come to price. The young woman laughs a loud and hearty hollow echo.

Wednesday 23 April 2014

Gae Pishen


Well, it's been a quiet old time at Born Frowning, my home town, out there on the edge of a panic attack. We all got through the winter, thanks for asking, the same way we always do. Dig in, hope for the best and let it pass the way it wants to. Now the trees are budding and the air is taking on that fresh smell and the sun feels like it did when you were young. Except we're not. Time doesn't roll that way no matter how much you wish.

Things have been slow over here and I've left a whole bunch of unfinished stuff, but I hope to pick it up again soon. Four years is a long time and I need to focus on bigger fish. But I'll be back. Maybe not every month, maybe not always stories, maybe just a picture or two like the one below. This ain't dead, it's just resting.

Tom | Born Frowning,

Where all the women are bitter and all the men are sad and all the children won't stop asking questions