Fatherkim

An online journal

  • How To Say Goodbye

    1. Leave without a word

    Sneak out through the blurred lines between discretion and in- pertinence.  

    On the way home think of an excuse as to why and in the morning, pop a text with a sheepish apology to get by.

    2. Leave loudly.

    Let your presence be known and missed.

    Shake hands for an awkwardly long time, look them in the eye and tell them you’ll see them soon. 

    Keep that smile fixed, let your canines reflect the light. 

    Take a couple steps through the door and breathe a sigh of relief out of sight.

    3. Be the last one standing.

    It’s quarter past 1 in the morning and all the guests are gone.

    The host is doing the dishes while crunching up the cans, glass bottles clink while the hoover whines.

    But wait. 

    Hold your position soldier, their patience is running thin.

    Soon they’ll lose their composure and then you will win.

    (Bonus point if they pay for your uber)

    4. The cliff hanger.

    Harder said than done I’m afraid.

    Requires a delicate balance of emotional intelligence and charisma.

    You need to develop motif, a captivating storyline ideally with shared experiences, lead up to a climax and then-

  • Hello World

    It’s been exactly 7 years, 7 months and 2 days since I last posted on this blog and my oh my a lot has changed.

    Rediscovering this blog has brought to light a lot of thoughts and emotions I have been repressing as of late. In some ways reading my posts from 2015 felt like discovering a time capsule buried deep underground – I wonder if 15 year old Josh had the foresight to start this blog for exactly this reason, though I may be giving myself too much credit here.

    7 years, 7 months and 2 days since my last post, over a decade since my first, time really does stop for no man. These days it feels like every time I blink a week has gone by. It’s not that I feel like i’m running out of time, it’s more a sense of where has the time gone? To use an analogy, it’s like opening up a packet of crisps you’d get in a tesco meal deal and after two bites there’s only crumbs left or when you take a 15 minute nap and you wake up 3 hours later. Physical changes in myself and my surroundings make this all too real, I don’t think 15 year old Josh would be able to recognise how I look now, he’d probably think I was 30 years old. My friends are getting engaged and I get hangovers to the point where I have pretty much quit drinking alcohol. More poignantly perhaps, and what truly worries me the most, my parents are getting old. My mum’s 63 now. I can see the spring in her step deflate, she dyes her hair more often, she tires more easily. These days I come face to face with death more often than I’d like through work and it’s made me a better man and has helped me come to terms with our temporal nature. However,I find it doesn’t help reconcile the fear I feel about losing my parents – and so I pray.

    Reading through my posts I can see that I used to sprinkle in religious terminology and imagery to highlight certain points. I guess I’ve always been christian, after all I pretty much grew up in the church. I have however rejected God for far too long. I’m a lot more confident in myself now and have no problems admitting that I am insecure, I believe this has reflected itself in my faith. For decades I would pray for a sign, a miracle, a tap on the shoulder to let me know you’re real. But how foolish I was. It’s the nature of man to doubt one’s self. Unless you have a psychopathic level of self-confidence or you have a fool’s amount of self-belief a sign from God will, in a weeks time, reduce into a fever dream or a hallucination. It’s of late that I have come to realise that truly the signs are everywhere. In 2026 society has silently amalgamated “faith” and “blind faith” to be synonymous. The truth is, there is no such thing as “blind faith” if you open your eyes out on to reality everything points towards God. “Seek and you shall find.”

    I interact with a lot of people every day. Unfortunately, more often than not I meet these people during their worst times. In some ways I think empathy is a 6th sense we all have and mine seems to be particularly fine tuned (unsure whether this is a blessing or a curse).The fact that I enjoyed thinking as deeply as any 15 year old could internally, making honest but futile attempts to understand myself and make sense of my inner dialogue, is a testament to how much I am fascinated by mankind. I’m not sure where it has originated from but the following phrase has always resonated with me, “every person that comes into your life arrives carrying an entire world of their own.” I take away a couple points from this phrase which I hope resonates with whoever may stumble across this post and read this far along. Firstly, without even being conscious about it, we all live our lives as if we’re the main character in a movie. Think about it, the entirety of your existence and interaction with the universe has been through your own senses. I believe this points towards our selfish nature. I could unpack this further but for the time being I’ll conclude that being aware of this has helped me be a better man. Secondly, in the past decade friends, colleagues and family have come and gone. I have always struggled to come to terms with this. Childishly, I’d always look for something or someone to blame or rather to explain this. I’ve come to understand this as an extrapolation of our selfish nature. I’ve learnt to let go of the reins and to cease control. After all, we’re all main characters in our own movies. It wouldn’t make sense for us to direct and produce another’s script.

    This has been a bit of a verbal diarrhea for which I apologise. I do, however, feel better having let it out. Apologies for the graphic imagery. I want to keep this up, I haven’t written in a very long time and I have a lot to get off my chest.

    Josh,

    Saturday 16th of May 2026.

  • love

    Picture the scene

    Spring petals ride the warm breeze onto my window sill.

    Last nights rain drips down from the gutter.

    Bed hair, without a care, woken up by the sun peaking through my curtains.

    Whilst the coffee grinds,

    You wake up.

    We make love.

    Engage in small talk.

    It’s summer now

    Our naked bodies are entangled

    Before the Fall

    Licentious heaven, unadulterated fun without any shame.

    My body’s a furnace, the heat too hot for you to bare thus,

    You wake up.

    We make love.

    Engage in small talk.

    Autumn seems to be all doom and gloom.

    Maroon leaves contrast the pale blue sky

    The breeze has a frosty bite now.

    You better wrap up tight now.

    Perhaps it’s the lack of sun making us so irate

    The shorter days seem to keep us wide awake – with nothing else to do

    We make love.

    Engage in small talk.

    Now it’s winter.

    The cold seeps through the walls sending shivers and dampening our spirits.

    Though you’ve grown tired of my symmetry

    You cling on, leeching off my warmth.

    With your raspy breath I can’t tell whether you’re awake or asleep.

    Even though the nights are long, we were never aroused.

    You wake up.

    We break up.

  • 3AM

    The hums you hear in bed
    The static of the night,
    The sound-track to your thoughts.

    When the hustle and bustle of your day subsides
    Like a fading siren flying east to west,
    Dusk settles and everything mutes.

    You lie in your thoughts,
    Un-comfortable.
    You turn on the music, drowning the deafening silence, fighting fire with fire
    Until your eyelids start to droop.

    The clock hands tick,
    Loud and obnoxious.
    Your eyes open.
    The sun peaks over the horizon.
    The trumpets mute falls off.

     

     

  • Dusk Till Dawn at London Liverpool Street

    6 is my favorite number.
    The sun rises 10 minutes to
    the birds chirps 10 minutes past.
    Between day and night, lost
    free without restraint
    uncircumscribed, by the rules and laws
    written under concrete pavements,
    graffitied a hundred meters high
    on skyscrapers and tower blocks.

    Rheumy eyed, but spirits high I walk the streets alone.
    I walk past bin-men, homeless men, men walking their dogs,
    jogging men, men in suits and intoxicated men –
    I wonder if they recognize me.
    With their four eyes, goggley eyes
    fixated on the gum splattered floor of London Liverpool Street.

    Tin cans and glass bottles litter the pavements.
    Bin bags torn open by foxes and rodents,
    festering next to sleeping bags with cardboard signs and
    baskets half empty with loose change.
    I look at my reflection on the humongous twenty by twenty
    meter square window of TM Lewin,
    like the mannequin with no face, I cannot recognize
    what I see in front of my very own eyes.

    I stand, disgusted.
    Unable to see through my tattered clothes and
    shambolic shoes stained and worn down, torn over the miles.
    This body that I’m in, chameleon;
    (I came to this spot several times after, wearing different moods or attires
    and every time I stood in front of my reflection I was a new man.)

    As I stood rooted to the spot, unable to look away
    the sun slowly peaked its head over the Heron Tower.
    The glare on the window, over exposed my reflection
    allowing me to pry my eyes off and once again,
    continue walking rheumy eyed, but spirits high
    to the hums and whistles of the bin-man
    through London Liverpool Streets rat infested, newspaper littered
    gum splattered concrete pavements.

  • Tattoo

    I want a heart of gold
    I want it in bold, on the cleft of my left chest.
    All I want is for you to understand,
    But I cannot speak to you.

    All I can manage is a gulp-
    My Adam’s apple quivers and
    You sigh. The whole world sighs.
    Like Solomon, you know what is right and what is wrong
    You sit across me in ur throne,
    With your crisp white shirt and your black collar on.

    It’s about aesthetics.
    It’s about ascetics.
    It’s what’s mine
    It’s what’s divine.

    To you, my heart of gold may as well be fodder.
    For this ink in my skin will brand me a bull
    And you will be ashamed that I had once drank from your udder.

    But there can only be one bull.
    The 19 years under your shadow have sharpened my horns
    And as the blood which leaks from my pores christens me
    I will strike you in your side to bathe in your rich holy oil.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Dreamers

    I can’t seem to fall asleep tonight.
    Counting sheep, meditating, recordings of rainy nights- something’s just not right.

    I was too busy visiting foreign countries, walking through narrow streets.
    Bumping into old-acquaintances, new ones too.
    I blew the dust off my trumpet, ended up in Ronnie Scott’s – sober.
    I tried my luck with Poker, grandmaster Kim without a wsop gold ring.

    I wrote love letters packed in glass bottles, soon to be washed up on shores.
    I met the love of my life, started a family, even watched them grow, grow and grow.

    I was back in school. Mum’s packed lunches, tuna sandwiches, penguin bars.
    Awkward school dances, braces, shoes two sizes too big.

    I saw my future alas, hazy. Like a broken camera struggling to focus.
    I think I saw streaks of grey hair, an antique armchair, a gold ring too.

    But it comes to a stop, the train grinds to a halt. Some people get out, others step in but it seems like I’m a part of the  background, just taking it all in.

     

     

  • Results Day

    • Uh Oh.

    Never in my life has there been a more momentous day than the 17th of August and I-am-nervous.

    Not only does the outcome of my A level examinations determine whether I gain entrance into my desired university, but it also symbolises the culmination of the seven years of secondary education I have received. It’s interesting to think that, if I were to not continue onto higher education, the grades I receive on the 17th will be the highest formal qualification I have.

    Owing to the above, my anxiety surrounding that day seems completely justifiable; after all, my admittance into higher education depends on my grades and even if I were to go straight into work, good grades would be imperative in order for me to be employable.

    However, I would be lying If I did not mention the fact that the tumultuous relationship I have had with results day is exponentially worsened due to my over-bearing pride. Indeed, due to my pride, what could be a mere heart-flutter moment turns into a deafening uproar of emotions just prior too, and just after I open my letter.

    The consequence of my pride is as follows, a positive outcomes results in a simple acknowledgement that I have managed to do what was expected of me- I find myself devoid of the euphoria which would be expected after a desired outcome. The other side of this double-edged sword is that the repercussions of a negative outcome is not only a missed university placement but also a failure from my part to match expectations. In other words, what should be a slap on the face turns into a 30 storey high fall.

    I find it funny how, in my head, I’m comparing my dilemma to that of Shakespeare’s Caius Martius or King Oedipus who’s downfall has been attributed to their hubris. Perhaps I should change my bio to ’21st century tragic hero’ or ‘the tragedy of the millennial hero’ – (probably not, Josh. 2018 update)

    This is my first blog-type post in a while and I’m feeling very rusty. I think I just need to persevere and keep writing in order for the whole process to feel less clunky and to find/feel comfortable in my own narrative style.

    Until next time,

    Josh Kim

     

     

  • Twisted

    Innocence,

    Then anger.

    Next comes the embarrassment,

    Followed by the defence mechanism.

    Finally stopping at the realisation that

    You just need faith.

     

  • 5am thoughts

    The irony about trying to find yourself is that the more you reflect the further away you stray from your true image.

    We’re blessed with rationality and self-consciousness but we cannot answer the simple question of ‘who am I’?

    When I consider this seemingly trivial inquiry two key things occur in my mind. Firstly, the syntax of the question seems to presuppose that the focus of the inquiry is on a singular ‘thing’ however, the use  of the pronoun ‘who’ doesn’t immediately rule out the possibility of a plurality. Indeed, ‘Who’ could be in reference to a person or persons.

    It is 18 past 5 in the morning and I am leaning against my wall. It is crazy to think that the wall is also exerting the same force in my direction, I think that’s the case anyway?

    I’m disappointed that Thersa May decided to go ahead with her attempt to form a minority government with the DUP. Yes she won the most votes, but with all things considered the result of this election was a huge loss for herself and the Conservative party. She better get herself a new whip, after all a single rebel backbencher could result in motions failing to pass.

    My neck is killing me.