Quillin Stocker

Abstract:

I have made a collection of short stories, chapters of larger projects, flash fiction, comic panels, character designs, and poetry. I am starting the collection off with a series of poems I’ve written during my time here at Antioch. I chose to focus on young adult fiction in multiple forms because it’s something I enjoy and would like to make into a career at some point in my life. I also chose this subject because not enough people focus on young adult fiction, so I wanted to bring a new voice into the field.

Rising

There’s no good in a darkened light

If you don’t understand this you will never understand anything

The point at which the landscape dissolves and becomes something else

I will be back and by then you will find me merciful

On the outside looking in it seems like everything is happiness

I wanted to feel the light of fire on my tongue

So I walked into the raging bonfire as it spits ash into the darkening sky

But the flames held no solace for my broken psyche

I made no move to escape the heat so I stayed in the fire and let it shape me into something new

From the smoldering embers I rise again

All sharp edges and glinting metal

I am reborn of steel and hope

Untitled

I sit and stare at the blank page before me

I cannot write

I sit and stare at the blank page before me

The page is staring back at me

I sit and stare at the blank page before me

I finally begin to write

I am no longer staring at a blank page

The page is bleeding ink

Believe Me

You asked me if I ever wanted to believe in something. I do. I want to believe in this. I want to believe that there’s more. That we could be more. That well. That we could be heroes. But I just can’t believe it. The thing I do believe is that you love me. But ours is not a sunshine and roses kind of love. Ours is a love of leather jackets and whiskey kisses. Ours is a love of steel and blood. You love me like my demons do. And I believe in myself like the voices in my head that scream in the brief quiet moments before the dawn sun rises in the east.