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they believed love’s promise was theirs alone, each one convinced they’d be the one to change the game. but step back, see them now, brushstrokes on the same relentless canvas. Fernande, a shadow in charcoal strokes, her silhouette too thin against the cold canvas, dreamed her love could fill the negative space in a portrait where he barely sketched her in. a muted gray smudge, lost between the lines he never finished, as if she could outrun the punchline, ha! Eva, soft as pastels fading at the edges, thought love was painted in gentle hues. her sweetness dissolved into pale watermarks, a smear of tenderness the canvas rejected. love laughed in her face, a cruel smear, then watched her waste away. their hues bleed together, sorrows overlapping in unintended harmony. Olga, swirling in violent arcs of red and purple, spun her ballerina moves, a tempest of passion that cut across the frame. she danced, even as the canvas tore beneath her feet, her bleeding hands gripping a dream no brush could ever hold. Marie-Thérèse, golden and shimmering, dazzled in bright, reckless yellows. her youth burned across the canvas, vivid and fleeting. “youth is a joke, kid,” the colors whispered, “it just makes you easier to chew.” she was gone, swallowed whole by the shadows, before she even realised. Dora, etched in heavy lines and dark shades, wore her defiance like cracked varnish. she saw the fissures spreading across the wall, but tried to seal them with her tears, a futile restoration, destined to fail. her fractured image stood firm, until it finally crumbled. Françoise, sharp as a palette knife, carved her story into the edges of the canvas. she knew the game was rigged, but she walked away with her scars— and a sliver of pride. the smart ones always leave, but they leave a piece of themselves behind, don’t they? Genevieve penned verses in invisible ink, words evaporating before they touched the page. she sang sonnets to an empty gallery, but silence is just the echo of indifference, a blank canvas that never held her dreams. Jacqueline, drowning in devotion, poured herself into the colours, layer upon layer of false hope. her blues deepened, her reds darkened, until the weight of it pulled her under. her reward? a shadow at the edge of the painting, a shape no one cared to notice. they all chased love, an impossible abstraction, dogs chasing cars, fools who didn’t realise the engine would crush them if they ever caught it. but oh, there was a single brush of light, a glint of gold leaf under peeling paint, when love felt almost gentle, almost real, a whispered promise trapped beneath the glaze. and yet, here i stand, palette in hand, a self-portrait blurred by trembling strokes, believing i might mix a new colour, one that won’t fade like all the rest. we all think we’re the exception, the masterstroke in a flawed design, as if we could redraw the lines, but perhaps the joke’s on me, thinking i could be anything but another shade in love’s indifferent masterpiece. step back now, observe the painting in full view: love never slowed, never inquired, and it sure as hell won’t turn around to admire the mess it left behind. &nbsp;

The foolish canvas

she sleeps, a small shape in the alley, curled around a roaring dream. the gutter is full of rats, soft lives, quick jaws, eyes always down. a bird in a cage screams its song into steel. the sky doesn’t care. bars don’t break, and hope dies quiet. coal stays coal. grit and dust, forgotten. only under the crush, when bones crack, does a diamond breathe. the phoenix burns, not for glory, but because the ashes itch. rebirth isn’t beauty. it’s clawing, tearing, a fistfight with the dark. trees rooted too tight stay shadows. growth snaps, splits, bleeds upward toward the sun. and yet, the dandelion, fragile. feral. spits in the face of stone. roots ripping through concrete. it wins. this is for those who burn, who bleed, who refuse to break. you are still here. this is how small things shatter cages. how ash turns to flight. how stone crumbles for one last breath of light. do it. stand up. don’t bow. Be a lionFSF

When a cat dreams of becoming a lion

I’ve never been a Francis. Not really. It’s the name stamped on the birth certificate, sure, but it never felt like mine. For years, Francis was just this faceless thing, a ghost name the tax office and the airlines used to torment me. Everyone called me by my middle name. Francis was the label they slapped on your luggage, the name read out by bored airport announcers when your flight was delayed. Nothing more.That is, until now. Here in this godforsaken hospital bed, Francis has come alive. It’s the name they bark at me every morning, the one scribbled on my wristband like some sort of cruel joke. It’s the name they use when poking me with needles or serving me food that looks and tastes like wet cardboard. And, God help me, I’ve started answering to it. But this story isn’t about hospitals or wet cardboard meals. It’s about the one time being Francis actually mattered.It happened on a business trip to Melbourne. Melbourne: the land of laneway coffee and suits who care too much about their shoes. Like every trip, I made my ritual stop at Mary Ryan’s Bookshop in the airport. It was my thing. Travel, buy books for the girls, fly out. I was halfway through the children’s section when the loudspeaker crackled to life.“Francis Forbes, your gate is closing. Please make your way to Gate 30 immediately.”Didn’t even register.“Francis Forbes, final call.”And then it hit me. Oh, bloody hell, that’s me.Now, back then, I was still playing rugby. Sort of fit, sure, but let’s not kid ourselves. I loved my red wine, my steaks, my late-night cheese boards. I was carrying serious bulk—116 kilos of good living and rugby muscle. But when push came to shove, I could move. And, mate, I had to move.Mary Ryan’s sits at a right angle to the food court in Melbourne Airport. Picture this: I bolted out of the shop like a bull out of the gate. Hit that corner at full tilt, my momentum building, feet pounding. And just as I powered into the food court—boom! There he was.This little bloke, couldn’t have been more than 65 kilos soaking wet, stepped directly into my path. He had on this immaculate grey suit, shoes you could see your reflection in. I had zero time to brake. None.Instinct took over. I threw up my shoulder like I was hitting a ruck. The collision? Textbook. A perfect ten-pin bowling strike. The poor guy went flying. Just crumpled. I didn’t even realise what had happened until I heard the crunch—not mine, his.I skidded to a stop, heart racing. “Oh, Christ! I’m so sorry! So sorry!” I sputtered, hauling him off the ground. He was dazed, eyes like saucers. And then I saw who it was.Bill Shorten. Bloody Bill Shorten. Labor frontbencher. The bloke you see on TV, shaking hands and kissing babies. And here I was, having flattened him like a lawn mower.But I didn’t have time to process. I was late. “I’m so sorry, mate. I’ve gotta run,” I said, half-apologising, half-panicking, hoisting him upright like a sack of potatoes. He was too shocked to speak. His mouth moved, but nothing came out. Meanwhile, chaos erupted behind us.Two kids—his kids, I figured—were trailing after him like bewildered ducklings. A blonde woman, who looked like she’d stepped out of a David Jones catalogue, was rushing over, hands in her hair. And then I spotted him: a guy in a black suit with one of those curly earpieces, eyes locked on me. Security.For a split second, I thought about stopping, about explaining myself. But then I thought, nope, not today. I turned and bolted, adrenaline surging.By some miracle, I made it to Gate 30. The attendant looked up, bored. “You’ve got 30 seconds,” she said. “You’re lucky.” Lucky? Lucky didn’t cover it. I scanned my ticket, stumbled onto the plane, and collapsed into my seat, gasping for air.And that was it. I made the flight. The world kept turning. Somewhere in Melbourne Airport, Bill Shorten was probably wondering what the hell had hit him. And me? I’ll always have the story of the day Francis Forbes knocked a frontbencher flat on his arse and got away with it.Send me beers if you like this story. I guarantee it’s true.

The day Bill Shorten learned to fly

They brought it to me, laid it on the hospital table like a gift. A book of fairy tales Grimm, they called it. Figures. I glanced at the cover, at the tangled letters and faded illustrations, and thought, What am I, six? But I was too tired to argue, so I let it sit there.For hours, it stared at me, an unwanted guest in a room that smelled of antiseptic and quiet defeat. Finally, I picked it up, more out of boredom than curiosity, and thumbed through the pages with a smirk that felt like armour.The words were simple, too simple for someone who had lived through this through IV drips and beeping machines, through nights so long they stretched into dreams. But I kept reading, like poking a bruise just to see if it still hurt.The twelve princesses danced their shoes to shreds. The soldier watched them, invisible and clever, while the king sat useless on his throne. I rolled my eyes. Figures.But then, somewhere between the worn-out shoes and the soldier’s quiet triumph, something shifted. The words deepened, like shadows in twilight. The princesses weren’t just dancing— they were escaping. The soldier wasn’t clever he was desperate. And the king? Maybe he wasn’t useless. Maybe he was just tired, just like me.Suddenly, it hit me this wasn’t for children. Not the way I’d thought. This was for the broken, the bruised, the ones lying in sterile rooms, waiting for answers that may never come.I read on. Gretel burned the witch, Hansel found the crumbs, and I thought about hunger, about all the times I’d chased the wrong thing a bad dream, a bad person, a bad hope I couldn’t let go of.Rumpelstiltskin spun gold, but only because someone was drowning in promises they couldn’t keep. And wasn’t that life? We all spin something just to keep breathing.By the time I closed the book, the machines hummed softly in the corner. I sat there, staring at the cover, and for the first time in days, I felt awake. The words buzzed in my veins, electric, alive, like a story I’d forgotten but always knew.I thought fairy tales were for children, but maybe they’re for the weary for the ones old enough to know magic isn’t real but still hope to see it anyway.I laughed, softly, the kind of laugh that feels like breathing. And in that quiet room, surrounded by tubes and wires, I felt something I hadn’t in years something close to joy. Figures.

The Rediscovery

<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: calc(16px * var(--body-fontSize, 1)); font-weight: inherit; font-style: var(--body-fontStyle, normal); background-color: rgba(249,250,251,var(--tw-bg-opacity));">In the stale, flickering light of St. Oblivion’s Hospital for the Terminally Confused, a man sat slumped in a wheelchair, unnoticed and unclaimed. To the staff, he was less a person and more an obstruction. His chart hung like an accusation on the back of his chair, an indictment of a system too fragmented to care.Emily, a nurse tethered by her duties to a Sisyphean cycle of meaningless tasks, glanced at the man and then away. His wheezing was insistent, like the whisper of a ghost demanding acknowledgment. But her own survival, her fragile grip on the chaotic machinery of the hospital, depended on ignoring such whispers. "Not mine," she muttered, a mantra that justified her neglect.Carla, her colleague, drifted through the scene like a specter, her uniform slightly wrinkled, her breath faintly tinged with menthol. When she finally noticed the man, it was with the resigned disdain of someone tasked with cleaning a mess they didn’t create. “Still here?” she murmured, the words falling into the void between duty and avoidance.And so, the man’s life faded without drama or urgency, his shallow breaths giving way to silence. No one marked the moment when he crossed from neglect to death, for in a place like St. Oblivion’s, such transitions were mundane.The body was moved with all the reverence of misplaced paperwork to the morgue, where Chance, an intern desperate to prove his worth to a faceless hierarchy, was tasked with cataloging it. He approached the man’s remains with a mixture of dread and weary resignation, wondering if he, too, might one day be reduced to a forgotten pile of obligations.It was then that the transformation occurred. The body, stripped of its name and dignity, began to dissolve, its form reshaping into something unrecognizable yet disturbingly familiar. When the process was complete, what remained was a shimmering heap of Foolacillin, a substance whose purpose was as ambiguous as its origins.Chance stared at the pile, his first thought not wonder or fear, but bureaucracy. What form do I even use for this? he wondered, clutching his clipboard as if it might protect him from the absurdity of what he was witnessing.The hospital administration, when informed, responded with its usual mix of indifference and opportunism. “Document it,” they said, as though writing it down might make it less absurd. “And notify the pharmaceutical companies.”The sale to Pfizer was conducted with the quiet efficiency of a crime hidden under layers of administrative jargon. The contract referred to the body as a “biochemical anomaly,” a term that neatly erased its humanity. Chance, who had initially hesitated at the morality of the deal, found himself swept along by forces beyond his control. His objections, like his existence, were insignificant within the machinery of progress.Pfizer’s scientists, upon acquiring the Foolacillin, set about analyzing it with the fervor of priests dissecting a relic. They found it both miraculous and incomprehensible, a substance that promised cures but delivered contradictions. Their marketing department, however, had no such doubts. Foolacillin was branded as “The Future of Medicine,” and its image, shimmering, unknowable, and vaguely ominous, was plastered across billboards and television screens.For Chance, the $3 million payout was both a triumph and a burden. He paid off his debts, bought a sleek car, and yet found no comfort in his newfound wealth. The body, or what it had become, lingered in his thoughts, a silent reminder of his complicity in a world that valued miracles more than men.Emily and Carla continued their work as though nothing had happened, their guilt buried beneath layers of routine. The hospital launched an internal review, its findings buried in the bureaucratic abyss where such things go to be forgotten.As for the elderly man, he became a symbol, though of what, no one could quite agree. To the pharmaceutical industry, he was a breakthrough. To the hospital staff, he was a cautionary tale. To Chance, he was a haunting question: Had the man truly transformed, or had they simply found a way to sell his death?The story ended where it began: in the fluorescent glare of a hospital where life and death were processed with equal indifference. Foolacillin continued to sell, its origins sanitized into a corporate success story. But in the corners of the hospital, in the whispers of the staff and the uneasy glances of the interns, the man lingered, a reminder of the absurdity of a world that reduces people to products and calls it progress.

If I close my eyes it's not my problem

It’s not often you see it, the raw, the pure, like lightning cracking open the sky just to say, “I’m here, goddammit, and I’m not sorry.”Konstas, the kid, nineteen, sharp as a razor with the kind of grin that tells you he knows this isn’t just a game, it’s a fight, a carnival, a love letter scrawled in sweat and leather.He stands there, legs splayed, bat wide like he’s daring the world to bowl him over. And Bumrah— the big dog, the executioner, the man paid to send kids like this back to the void— throws fire.But the kid doesn’t flinch. No. He flips it— scoops it like a thief pulling silver from a king’s plate. A four. A six. Another four.The crowd goes mad, a thousand hands ripping through the summer air, but the kid? He’s just there, calm, alive in a way you wish you could bottle.He’s not a batsman; he’s a goddamn artist, painting strokes of rebellion on a canvas of green. He’s a kid in the backyard with the sun in his eyes, playing for nothing but the joy of it all.Sixty runs later, he’s still smiling, and you know— you know— this world isn’t about numbers, or records, or the grind of men marching toward nothing.It’s about this: a flash of brilliance, a kid standing tall against the best in the world, saying, “I belong here. I’m alive. And isn’t that enough?”Hell, maybe for once, it is.FSF

F.S.F

Writing, Poems and Rants

The foolish canvas

When a cat dreams of becoming a lion

The day Bill Shorten learned to fly

The Rediscovery

If I close my eyes it's not my problem

The Kid at the Crease