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Creative Submission: ‘Tom Cat’ by Archie James Whittaker

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Featured image: Aleksandr Nadyojin/Pexels


I have a cat 

His name is tom

I love that cat 

He is the bomb

When I sit down on the bench 

He sits up next to me 

I never can quite love that cat 

The way he’s meant to be

His story’s a Greek tragedy 

Plucked from the litter too young

He can’t do anything strenuous

He is missing half a lung

I don’t know how he goes on

But he’s brave and fierce and strong

He roams the streets still looking

For some arms where he belongs

When I roamed the churchyard

He’d nag me to come home

We’d congregate the kitchen 

And sit upon our thrones

It wasn’t all smooth sailing

Some days we’d hiss and spit

But these were wounded cries

From a love that we both missed 

Some occasions he would irk me 

When he brought in dead mice

Sometimes I would tick him off 

By refusing to roll the dice

But we’d still sit up together

And lick our wounded paws

“I think love might exist,” I’d say

To which he would applaud   

I don’t know how I found him

I sure am glad I did 

He’s my crutch and mortal friend

The saucepan to my lid

I have a Tom 

His name is cat 

I love him 

He loves me back


East Lancashire local and current MMU philosophy student Archie Whittaker has been writing ‘bits and pieces’ consistently for his own entertainment for about four years. Not quite lyricism, not quite prose, most of his pieces are a loose collection of thoughts that attempt to confront the absurdities in the mundane.


This creative piece was submitted as part of our November theme: RELATIONSHIPS. If you would like to submit your own creative work to aAh! Magazine to be considered for publication check our latest theme and call for submissions.

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