Tag: Erin Venuti ’20
Winter Sunrise
by The Cowl Editor on November 19, 2018
Poetry
by Erin Venuti ’20
Woke before the sun today,
No intent to see it wake.
Eyes
Pry
Open after
Some hours.
Insufficient —
May as well have blinked;
Streetlamps still glow,
Same as last night’s close.
Beyond the window,
Quietly,
Navy
Fades to pale
Blue, sun stretches and exhales.
A yawn breaks free, a hopeful yellow,
Charging the day that’s yet to follow.
I find, midmorning, looking up,
The moon forgot to set.
It peers through
A too-bright blue —
Wistfully, I wonder
If it’s lonely without the stars.
I tell myself not to worry;
Today, the moon has other company.
My day begins and ends with night.
I feel I’ve seen the darkness longer than the light,
‘Cause I woke before dawn, without intent.
But I know: the sun is worth being patient.
Halloween Haikus
by The Cowl Editor on October 25, 2018
Features
TickTok TickTok Tick
I feel it running after me
Its breath on my neck.
—Jessica Polanco ’20
I can’t feel myself.
No one hears me talk to them
Is this death for me?
—Connor Zimmerman ’20
I hear a shuffle
And a chill goes down my back
All I see are eyes
—Sam Pellman ’20
It lived in Mary’s room
Mom blamed imagination
But I felt its breath
—Julia Zygiel ’19
Late October thoughts
Of pumpkin pies, sugar highs,
Warm nostalgic hearts.
—Erin Venuti ’20
Aura of horror:
Ghosts, witches, black cats are nigh.
The best time of year.
—Sam Ward ’21
Ghost Stories
by The Cowl Editor on October 25, 2018
Features
The Carson Killer
He didn’t want to get caught. The day he was suspected the shadows scratched across the hardwood floors of 29 Carson Avenue, as though the sun were trying to drag them to the basement. Day or night the sun succeeded; a cellar filled with more dark than light said as much. That’s how dark it must’ve always been. Yet, it didn’t stop the man from making it more midnight than milky-way-with-no-stars down there. Sealed windows and a victim a week kept the room heavy with languor only he could enjoy. Save the unheard screams from his “play dates,” it was quiet. Seldom was there a reason to suspect him of all people in the neighborhood. He was squeaky. Not a speck on him. When all the gardening he did finally got him dirty enough to be a suspect, he was gone. The police found a letter at 29 penned to them and the neighborhood.
“Reach inside,” he wrote. “Dig and dig. Look for it. Look, actually look. I assure you it’s there. I’ve seen it. All of them had it. All of us do. I saw it. They saw it too, before I let them go. The Capacity for murder is there. Everyone’s a killer if pushed far enough. The Capacity is buried below the gallbladder for most or in between the heart and the right lung for the extraordinary. I can’t wait to find out more in each of you. I can’t wait to find out which one I am.”
He didn’t want to get caught…so, he didn’t.
—Dawyn Henriquez ’19
“One of Them”
Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. Like so many others, I went trick-or-treating. I watched horror movies and visited haunted houses. I wasn’t immune to the world’s fascination with the dead who stay behind. But look where that got me. If this isn’t the definition of “cruel irony,” I don’t know what is.
Back then, costumes mattered. Halloween mattered. Now, the only thoughts I give the dark night are those of disgust. How, you must be saying, was I supposed to know how insensitive I was being when I was still alive? I can’t help it – I’m ashamed of who I used to be.
I remember my last Halloween. It was the first one after graduation and I’d driven three hours to my former roommate’s house in the middle of nowhere for a mini-reunion. Incredibles 2 had premiered that summer, so I was dressed as Elastigirl – not my most creative costume, but it was comfortable and, I had to admit, I looked pretty damn good in it.
The house backed up to a forest so dense I could hug two trees at the same time. It was my idea to go exploring there, to dare Death. After, I heard my friends rationalizing, claiming I didn’t deserve it. “She wasn’t thinking,” they said. “She’d had too much to drink.” They were kidding themselves. Cider may have played a part, but I was sober enough to know I was playing with fire.
Once we were in deep enough for the house lights to be swallowed by the wood, I started taunting the spirits, only half joking – Halloween isn’t fun unless some part of you believes in ghosts.
“C’mon out!” I yelled, laughing. “Bet’cha can’t scare us!”
The trees rustled incomprehensibly.
“Shut up!”
After a minute the air began to thin; only then did I pause to inhale and – I could have sworn – I heard the trees inhaling too. Suddenly, everything around me was thrashing violently. The wind scratched at my clothes, grabbed at my hair, and I screamed someone else’s scream.
Then, nothing.
Now I am one of them.
—Erin Venuti ’20
Eco Terror
“So. We were in the woods. Hanging out. Smoking—,” he paused, pursed his lips. “Wait, you guys aren’t, like, tightasses are you?”
The interviewer gave him a dead-eyed stare.
“Okay, it was cigarettes. Eddie’s new girlfriend is some wannabe witch, always yapping about stones and the moon and other bull. So, she’s feeling the spirit of the holiday, talking our ears off about All Hallow’s Eve, about honoring the dead, and she whips out chalk. But we’re in the woods, so she can’t really do anything with it. I think Andrew made some comment about using it on leaves.” He snickered.
The interviewer was unamused. “Mr. Greene, could we please get back to the matter of Wednesday’s incident.”
“Right. So she turns to the damned trees, talking about nature and oneness with the earth and once she’s on her third symbol on the third tree the whole circle of ‘em starts vibrating hard enough to stop a heart beat. It made my legs feel like pudding.”
“The chasm, Mr. Greene.”
“Listen, telling a story is like weaving a web, it’s very delicate very preci—”
“We are on an incredibly limited time frame.”
“Alright. So the trees are vibrating and Casey’s on the ground screaming, begging forgiveness, and there must’ve been something lost in translation because the freakin’ ground opened up and swallowed her and we were all standing by the edges because we were freaked by that point… Eddie’s gotta be devastated.”
“And you wouldn’t say your perceptions of the event were affected by the… cigarettes you were smoking that evening?”
“No way. I’ve been paranoid before, I’ve seen ghouls in shadows, but my mind is not nearly creative enough to make that up. That girl was messing with some chaos magic or something. What are you all telling her parents?”
“Our agency doesn’t handle that, only containment procedure.”
“Containment procedure?”
“Of anomalies.”
“So this isn’t an isolated incident?”
“Mr. Greene, right now all I can discuss is this particular event. Did Casey mention anything at all about a group called the Circle?”
—Julia Zygiel ’19
Home Alone
I wave goodbye as the last roommate’s car drives off into the darkening afternoon light. I sit myself down in my favorite beanbag with a mug of warm tea and close my eyes, the thought of having the house to myself causing a smile to play across my lips as I slowly drift into a lazy and much deserved nap.
Bang! A loud noise jerks me suddenly back to consciousness. My heart is in my throat as I look around wildly. Somehow, hours must’ve passed as the sky outside is a sheet of pure darkness. Inside, the dimness of the room without the lamps paints the furniture in white and black and gray, the same living room I have been used to for months made unfamiliar by the night. I hear the noise again.
“Hello? Back so soon?” I call out, hoping against hope that one of my roommates has simply forgotten her pajamas or her toothbrush.
The faint warbling of the wind answers me. From down the stairs comes a prolonged knock. One, two, three, four, five, six slow raps against the wooden door. “Did you forget your key?” I try again. No response.
Somewhere in the house the hundred-year-old floorboards creak and the windows rattle loose in their panes. The slow plodding of heavy footsteps reaches my ears. I turn and look into the kitchen, my eyes frozen and fixed on the door that guards the stairs. A screech of metal as the doorknob slowly turns. My heart has stopped beating altogether.
I hold my breath as the door swings open.
—Taylor Godfrey ’19
Some Things Have No End
by Portfolio Co-Editor on October 4, 2018
Portfolio
by Erin Venuti ’20
Janie wasn’t popular—except for the third week of fifth grade, when she brought a Chinese jump rope to recess. Her mom had found it during their annual summer trip to Cape Cod, in a store that sold toys, overpriced greeting cards, and platters plastered with the zip codes of surrounding tourist towns. Janie’s mom thought it would be a fun game to play with her friends at recess, which was almost exactly why Janie put off bringing it. Her mom was hopelessly optimistic. Janie was sure that she’d look lame if she brought it to recess. Eventually, though, Janie’s mom wore down her elementary-level mind. On the third Monday morning of the school year, Janie left the house with her bag packed, the Chinese jump rope hiding at the bottom.
The first half of the school day passed in its typical sequence: first math, then social studies, then language arts. At snack time, as usual, Janie joined her best friend Lydia at her desk cluster. They were discussing their plans for recess, or, more like Lydia was telling Janie what the plan was for recess. Janie usually did whatever Lydia did—it was easier that way.
“Amy told me that her and Sarah want me to hang out with them, so we’re gonna meet them by the swings,” Lydia said.
“They said it’s okay if I come too?” Janie asked. She couldn’t help but doubt that she was included in the initial invitation.
“Yeah,” Lydia said with a bit too much punctuation.
The silence that followed was interrupted by their teacher announcing the end of snack time. The class aimlessly shuffled towards the cubbies at the back of the room where their backpacks were stowed to return their lunch bags. Due to the alphabet, Janie’s cubby was on the top shelf, which was a problem because Janie was the shortest student in the class. Usually the teacher left a stool in front of the cubbies for this reason, but that day there was no stool in sight.
“Lydia, can you put this away?” She held the bag out to her friend.
“Sure.” Lydia took the bag and reached up to the backpack with ease.
Janie realized her mistake as soon as Lydia’s hand disappeared into the backpack. Lydia hesitated for a moment before she pulled her hand out again, this time holding the Chinese jump rope.
“What’s this?” Lydia asked.
“I dunno,” Janie said, looking at her shoes. “My mom made me bring it.”
Lydia inspected the packaging. The rope was navy blue with green specks and wrapped around itself into an infinity sign. Unlike a normal jump rope, it had no end.
“What makes it Chinese?”
“I dunno,” Janie said again.
“Looks like fun. Let’s play with it at recess.”
“Okay.”
Perhaps Janie’s mom was right.
At lunchtime, Janie carried the Chinese jump rope with her to the cafeteria. She followed Lydia to their usual table, where she placed the rope in front of her on the table. She felt a strange new sense of pride; surely if Lydia didn’t think the game was lame, Amy and Sarah wouldn’t think so either.
After their insufficient, 20 minutes of lunch, Lydia and Janie exited the cafeteria with the rope and the rest of the fifth grade, following the wave of students towards the playground. Per Lydia’s plan, they met Amy and Sarah at the swings.
“Hey!” Lydia said as they approached her friends.
Janie saw Amy and Sarah shoot each other a side-eyed glance. Anxiety tapped at Janie’s shoulder.
Meanwhile, Lydia pretended not to notice. “Janie brought a game that I think we should play.”
At this, Janie held out the Chinese jump rope.
“Um, okay,” Amy and Sarah said in unison.
Without a word, Janie tore the packaging apart and carefully unraveled the rope. It was much bigger than she’d initially thought—even when she held it with her arms stretched out above her head—the bottom of the circle grazed the ground. She laid the rope on the pavement and picked up the directions.
“Okay,” she said, in an authoritative voice that surprised even her. “I’ll read the directions and tell you guys what to do.” Within a minute, the girls were in position inside the circle, the rope wrapped around Amy and Sarah’s ankles with Lydia standing between them. Janie guided them through the steps, watching as Lydia jumped in and out of the rope.
Sooner than expected, the recess monitors rang the bell that signaled for the students to line up.
“That was fun, Janie,” Amy said, as they walked towards the building.
“Yeah,” said Sarah. “Can we play again tomorrow?”
Janie smiled at Lydia. “Okay.”
The rest of the week followed in the same manner; each day at recess, Janie, Lydia, Amy, and Sarah met at the swings to play Chinese jump rope. And each day, more of Janie’s classmates showed up to play with them. The game made its way into other aspects of Janie’s life as well—by Friday, she no longer ate snacks at Lydia’s desk cluster—people ate at hers. For the first time, Janie understood the appeal of being popular, of being noticed by people she barely knew. The feeling didn’t last long.
The following Monday, Amy showed up to recess with her own Chinese jump rope. It was pink.
There was no more need for Janie.
Summer’s Goodbye
by The Cowl Editor on September 20, 2018
Poetry
by Erin Venuti ’20
With September brings the last goodbyes of summer,
The last marshmallow toasted,
Farewell photos posted
Of what you’ll leave behind.
With September brings the first greetings of autumn,
New tales to tell
And new stories to live.
Novel characters featured in contemporary classics.
With September brings the pressure,
The preoccupation,
And the realization
That after that comes October, November, December…
Still, with September brings glances in the mirror
Of fading freckles
And tinted skin, like shadows of the past,
The final remnants of the August sun
And the last goodbyes of summer.
Anniversary
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.