Tip of the Quill: A Journal

Category Archives: Poetry

30:14 Becky

The flowers he brought her were too nice, too pretty, the sungs he sang were pathetic and sad, the clothes he bought would never impress her, nor the car, nor the hair, nor the dad. The lies that he spread would never upset her, the names that he called her weren’t bad, she would only […]

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30:13 Charlene

The notebook she kept was a gift for her son, the explicit descriptions of drugs and sex a sort of how-to manual for how to do it right. She wanted to save him the embarassment of not knowing what tossed salad meant, or how to raise a vein properly. She wanted him to be the […]

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30:12 Diane

On the wall of her studio apartment she’d hung license plates from all the states she’d never seen. She swore it was the next best thing to being there, but all he ever thought when he saw it was how sad and small her life had been.

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30:11 Kevin

Every time he told someone he liked rap music their eyes would widen and they’d chuckle because he was such the polar opposite of the demographic He wasn’t from the city, he wasn’t a minority, he was too well-spoken and he’d never fit in. The scene wouldn’t want him, it couldn’t stand him, but though […]

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30:10 Tricia

For their anniversary she took him by the hand and guided him to the steep old hill where they held the Soap Box Derby every year. She told him the races always made her think of him, sleek and smooth and gathering speed, but always downhill and headed nowhere.

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30:9 Caroline

Caroline sat at the edge of the dock, kicking her Doc Martens back and forth – she couldn’t remember if it was the fourth or the fifth, and he’d pleaded the fifth when she’d asked. The fit she threw was all for naught and like it or not they were through. It was something he’d […]

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30:8 Steve

The thing that finally got him wasn’t the cancer, nor was it the heartbreak or the cross-town bus, it wasn’t never finishing the crossword in the Sunday Times nor was it never having finished his novel. It wasn’t the way his mom looked in that dress or the way his dad looked in it three […]

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30:7 Tammy

Her fingers catch fire so easily, Every time she lights up or takes a drag, It’s almost as if she were a paper doll Or a bunch of sticks bound as kindling, Or at least that’s what her lover tells her, And God knows she’s been called worse before.

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30:6 Geoff

There once was a boy from Ohio, Who couldn’t find a rhyme for ‘Ohio’, He tried all night, But try as he might, He couldn’t find a rhyme for that state.

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30:5 Katherine

The problem with blasphemy isn’t that it’s unholy, nor that it makes the baby Jesus cry or that your poor grandmother, five years gone, certainly sheds a tear from beyond the grave every time you utter one – no, it’s that it’s so goddamned funny, it’s fun to use the Lord’s name in vain for […]

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