by Portfolio Co-Editor on September 13, 2018
Poetry
by Erin Venuti ’20
The day the words died,
I felt everything.
Beneath my paper skin,
I sensed the germ set in
And the illness begin,
Corrupting all forms of word,
Noun, preposition,
Adjective, and verb.
Beneath my paper skin, I felt
The pulse ceasing
To beat beat.
Beat beat.
The syllables decreasing.
Beat, beat.
My imagination leaving.
Beat.
Beat —
Mind blank.
Page plain.
Words fade
Like freckles in December.
Gone from my eyes
Too fast to eulogize.
In that winter
Of my spring
I spent hours
Attempting
To rekindle
The life of the letters
(Like Victor
And his creature.)
Yet, nothing.
Nothing.
I felt everything and nothing
The day the words died.
Often now
I lay down
In my field of poppies
And I think about how
I felt everything and nothing
The day the words died.
But out of those words grow
The words of today and tomorrow.
New words,
young words,
these words.