Tom Dawkins Photography

As a personal photography project, I have recently been working with my good friend Toula, to execute an idea that had been sitting in the back of my mind for a while. I’ve often been interested in the idea of pairing photographs with creative writing, melding two different art forms into a cohesive series of pieces.

Having sat on the idea for a while, reading some of Toula’s work made me realise she was the ideal person to undertake the project with. The key for me with this project has been to make sure that I’m taking photos to accompany Toula’s poems and short stories, as opposed to Toula writing descriptive pieces about the photos.

This webpage will be updated as the project progresses, and while the end goal is a complete series of 15-20 pieces that can be published, we’re delighted to share a 3-piece sample here.

You can also view the piece ‘A Smart Woman’ on Hobart Road, the youth writing section of Walleah Press.

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A Smart Woman

The phone stayed warm in my hand long after my child’s voice receded, the dial tone buzzing against my ear, as though it’s trying to convey something I am just not smart enough to understand. 

I am not a smart woman. 

Rain thuds against the roof. Michael has already gone to bed. He left the hallway light on for me again, and he picked flowers for me today, too. Purple. Told me they could never be as ‘jaw droppingly’ beautiful as me. A curious thing to say to a woman coloured purple and yellow like rotting fruit, fallen or perhaps shaken off of its tree in the summertime. The flowers weren’t perfect either, some missing leaves and a couple of dry petals. But that might be the way he sees me. Nothing and nobody can stay beautiful forever. When he’s sweet, it only makes things harder.

I used to think that love was perhaps meant to be a little frightening. Like when you wait for the storm to break over the house, even going so far as to call the silence before it peace. 

Michael isn’t cruel all the time. That’s what my poor children can’t understand. Nobody has ever understood. How could they? Sometimes he’ll press a cool beer into my hand after work and rub circles into the back of my neck like he can feel every ache inside of me. Sometimes he makes me laugh so hard I forget to be scared of him. Sometimes he’ll pull me into his chest like I’m actually something worth protecting. 

I crave his attention like the first rush of nicotine after a hard day. It doesn’t seem fair, but they stay longer than the shouting. Longer than my crying children and the smashed plates and the broken beer glass pressed to my neck and the bruises hidden under long sleeves in the summertime. 

I was going to make my spaghetti bolognese tonight. But Michael broke my only good, thick bottomed pot. God fucking forbid I burn it. I burn it, and throw away any chance at peace I might have for the night. Michael wasn’t happy about my lack of motivation to cook dinner, but he pretended not to care. He did break the pot, after all. He took the keys, bought take away for himself, came back and went to bed. Those twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds were the quietest I’ve had all month. The house settled itself, soft and easy, like it could finally breathe out. No television hum. No need to listen for the creaking of footsteps on floorboards. 

No voices. Just the fan on the ceiling, moving slow and steady, and the rain dripping from the gutter outside, and the light smell of the eucalyptus I had cleaned the countertops with. I sat at the kitchen table, cigarette between my fingers, and listened to the quiet. Listened to it spread through the rooms. Miachel’s place never shouted at me. Never yelled. Like it felt bad, like it knew I couldn’t take any more. 

I realised, with a look upwards to nowhere in particular, that it was the first time, in who knew how long, that nobody had needed anything from me. The silence felt so strange, I was just waiting for it to turn ugly. Ugly like your protector becoming your very threat.

So much for the straightforward knight in shining armour all little girls are supposed to dream about. When I was a girl, I was foolish enough to actually believe I dreamt more than others. As it turns out, everyone dreams. Only not so many choose to put in the effort or only so many get opportunities to make those dreams come true. It seems almost on purpose, the cruelty that’s inflicted upon me when I remember that little girl. My girls are dreamers. I hope it doesn’t end up getting them where it’s gotten me. Dreams are for rich people, people who don’t live off of drug deals and the Department of Social Security’s unemployment benefit. I remember how that little girl used to dream. How now my greatest achievement daily, if I’m lucky, is to avoid a sweaty, hard fist to my chest. 

Maybe that was the saddest thing about love. Sometimes it won’t just leave when it should, and there are certainly times where you will feel like it should. Sometimes it stays curled up inside bruised places, breathing soft and stubborn, making a home out of all your hurt. I used to think love was surviving somebody. Taking the shouting with all of those softer moments you get, and stitching them together into something liveable. But Mike touched me like I was something he could fix, sticky tape together, and that broke my heart worse than anything ever had. That night, I lay awake listening to the rain, cherishing the silence. Somewhere across town, my girls were sleeping with me too. 

I think part of me still believed love had to leave bruises and ugly tears behind to prove that it had really been there. Maybe real love is not the kind that will ask you to bleed for it. Maybe that’s how violence will fool you in the end- it will teach you to worship every crumb of tenderness like it’s proof of love. No woman deserves that. 

But perhaps that is all I am worth.

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Plastic Flowers

We left before the ink could dry

your name I learned to say, then hide

I still flinch when footsteps fall

your love is loud and sharp and small

–

I remember when we cried

quiet, careful, open-eyed

held our breath to make you leave

learned how violence could deceive

–

I was better off with plastic flowers

they always stuck around

you broke the door down, screamed for hours,

till all my paint peeled from sound

–

you say you never laid a hand

but I remember how you stand

how you sell your plans in chalk

how you watch, how you stalk

–

you speak of history like dust,

as if it settled without us

but even ghosts know when to run

and even weeds turn from the sun

–

you want a daughter

not the truth 

you want forgiveness

without proof

–

you want a bond you didn’t grow 

you want the garden without the hoe

but nothing thrives where harm is sown

and I am not your stepping stone

–

plastic flowers in my hands

plastic flowers by my side

I carry them how I carry you

all rot disguised with plastic pride

–

so don’t ask why I sound so cold

don’t ask me why I will not cry

I water plastic flowers, though they’re old

and marvel that they never died

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Ivy

Ivy sleeps beneath my skin

Quiet as a thief breaks in

I board my windows, lock the gate

Still somehow she the knows the way

–

I wash the dishes, make my bed

Try to clear this crowded head

But every room I wander through

Fills with echoes dark and blue

–

I think I’ve lost her weeks before

Swept her ashes from the floor

Then midnight strokes me down my spine

Grief returning right on time

–

She curls beside me in the dark

Strikes a match inside my heart

Every thought she pulls undone

Like paper left too long in sun

–

I wear bright colours, speak too loud

Laugh like thunder in a crowd

Still Ivy waits behind my teeth

Pulling slowly at the seams

–

People say that healing stays

That hurt will fade like summer haze

But Ivy crawls back every night

Mud on shoes and eyes too bright

–

I slam the door, I burn that thread

Still she sleeps beside my bed

Some ghosts won’t leave, but just grow still 

Just waiting for your bones to chill

–

I know her everywhere she dwells

Her sound, her shape, her heavy smell

Because no matter where I hide

Ivy always crawls inside