Tag: poetry
stranger on a plane
by The Cowl Editor on September 30, 2021
Poetry
by Marelle Hipolito ’22
flight delayed, NYC heavy rains
“sit tight,” the pilot said.
I sit tight and look out the window
It’s a cloudy night
I sit tight and look at the people in the seats around me
Business suit, foot tapping anxiously
Khaki shorts, humming a song softly
And just like me, you wore ripped jeans.
one hour of sitting tight under the heavy rain
the pilot says: “never mind…we gotta deplane!
come back to the gate in another hour
hopefully by then it’s just light showers”
We all stand up, and I see your face
In the center of dark straight hair
Eyes dark from sitting tight
We all exit the gate and go our separate ways.
Yet somehow you and I go to the same restaurant, tables 7 & 8
Ten minutes later, after you order and then I do
We hear over the microphone: “everyone, the weather cleared up! Come back to gate 2!”
You and I look at each other, down our drinks and take our food to go
And we both go sprinting to the gate, to board & go to different homes
Once we are seated, between the business suit and the khaki shorts
We look at each other, laugh and smile, and then we fly.
Once we land, before I noticed, I lose you at baggage claim
Oh stranger wearing ripped jeans on the plane
I can’t wait to tell this story, I wish I got your name
Scarlet Paint/The Red Sand
by The Cowl Editor on September 30, 2021
Poetry
by Max Gilman ’25
Heat grew over the paint-stroked sky,
He looked up, his gaze meeting light blue heavens,
His leg could be heard dragging from miles away,
Hours passed as he made his way, slowly, through the sea of ruptured stone,
How many of these stones must have been broken down to create the liquid ground,
Having been maltreated, his time was slowly dissipating by the second,
His trail, manifested from the blood spilt out the wound,
Hills stretched as if to mock the trifling size of man,
Hammering thoughts pounded the forefront of his mind,
Heroic steps continued, leisurely, yet antagonizing,
Hard hands strike the desert’s shifting sand, ceding control, he keels over with disdain,
He looks up, his gaze meeting light blue heavens,
Hark, a sound exerts itself throughout the barren sands cape,
Then, came the seductress, void of life, then came the cease of suffering, then, the final breath,
With red, the man painted, through death, an artist of blood,
A young boy enters the shattering wind’s domain,
Noticing the painted ground, the red sand.
Divorce
by The Cowl Editor on September 30, 2021
Poetry
by Anna Pomeroy ’23
I never liked hearing the truth.
It always scared me because
I would fear the worst
As the words slipped out of their mouths
With no point of return.
At age four, it was a struggle
For my parents to tell me they were getting
a divorce.
Sitting me down, their voices were hushed
By my shouts—
“No talking!”
I’d state demandingly
Thinking that if I were to not
Hear those words—
Those words that would eventually carry on with me through life—
It wouldn’t have to happen.
Llenita
by The Cowl Editor on September 23, 2021
Poetry
by Mariela Flores ’23
Content Warning: this piece contains content that could be triggering regarding eating disorders and body image.
She called me llenita.
Those words poked at my round belly,
her eyes threw daggers into the soft flesh of my cheeks,
her hands pinched my sides,
as if she were trying to rip off the excess fat.
At eight-years-old I was forced to notice my body,
every tamale, pupusa, tortilla, weighed
me down.
I began to sink within myself.
I had no strength at eight-years-old to carry
the weight of being llenita.
I noticed every curve––
the bluntness or the angles that protruded,
the soft skin not yet tainted
by the sharpness of my very own words.
I listened as the women around me talked.
Their voices held a dissonant tune
notes and cadences crashing into one another.
It reached my ears,
the words dieta and gordita, joined the chorus leaving no room for a bridge.
I had been called out and accused.
They were the judge and juror sending me to a life sentence
of questioning if I was too llenita, gordita, feita.
They handed me rope that I would tie around my waist
measuring my worth every single day.
Llenita was tattooed onto my forehead.
A reminder that being too full was the worst thing I could be.
If I was llenita,
no one would ever think I could be bonita.
Be Patient
by The Cowl Editor on September 23, 2021
Poetry
by Grace O’Connor ’22
Being patient makes her head spin and her nausea take over.
Being patient makes her feel like she is locked in a small space,
With the walls closing in on her, darkness preparing to give her a suffocating hug.
Being patient leaves marks on her skin of irritation and fear.
Being patient leaves her forgetting how to breathe,
As she attempts to force air into her shallow lungs, her heart pounding for mercy.
Being patient makes her forget how to live.
Being patient makes her thoughts stab her brain like nails,
Piercing through soft tissue, paving the way for her lifeline to trickle down.
Being anxious feels more natural to her.
Being anxious allows her to give in to her own worst enemy,
Providing herself temporary relief and a quick moment to breathe.
What’s the difference between the two?
Being patient is how she is told to act and being anxious is instinctive to her.
What’s worse one may ask?
She doesn’t know, and will she ever?
She craves a quick fix, giving in to her inner vices,
As patience looms in the far distance, unreachable from darkness’s tight hug.
She yearns for normalcy,
Wondering day by day if she’ll ever feel that true bliss.
Every year she is one step closer in this taxing marathon.
She knocks down barriers that her mind puts in her way.
Stopping herself from giving in to temporary fixes,
Learning how to embrace patience despite how excruciating it may be.
Be patient.
Stop worrying.
Why do you care so much?
If only her overworked mind was willing to listen all the time,
This battle would be easy.
But does growth come easy? Never.
She will never stop fighting.
The Sims
by The Cowl Editor on September 23, 2021
Poetry
by Toni Rendon ’24
Why can’t life be more like The Sims
Where no matter what day it is, we can always win
Strangers come over to celebrate your birthday
And people can empathize with you on your worst days
Let’s build our home from the ground up
A place where happiness can always find us
Where our depression doesn’t have to win
And if we get stuck with it
We can always go to Create a Sim
and re-roll our traits again
Here we have a pause button
So, we don’t keep walking around like we lost something
There’s no fear if our hearts collide
Because here there’s only you and I
The NPCs are insignificant
This is our world, they just live in it
The bad parts, use fast forward to skip it
So, the sad parts we don’t really live it
Imagination is king here, so sky’s our limit
We always know how we are
Because our relationships are tracked in a bar
If we take the modding too far
And our perfect world crashes like a car
Promise that we’ll “Shift + Click” reset us
We can always work out the extras
Maybe this time we’ll get lucky
And the update won’t make the relationship buggy
I’m not trying to be funny
I’m just trying to raise my skills
So, I have what I need to pay our bills
Let’s not get into semantics
Instead use the mischief skill
And let’s get into some antics
We’ll never be bored now
There’s a whole new 64-bit world
For us to explore now
a highway is no place for a deer
by The Cowl Editor on September 23, 2021
Poetry
by AJ Worsley ’22
happier when i’m away, i do my best to keep a distance.
all i hope for is that while i’m away you forget my existence.
if that were to happen, i’d have no reason to return,
you don’t know what you have until it’s gone, a lesson you’ve yet to learn.
pick and choose between red pill, blue pill, but why pick one?
take it all for yourself, everybody prefers a purple tongue.
these things are never easy, and i don’t belong here,
this danger creates anxiety, like a highway for a deer.
i want off the rollercoaster, i’m nauseous and numb
these loops and turns have stripped me of sympathy and i’m not having fun.
it’s like a dwindling flame, and every time the fire wishes to die
you bring it back to life with some gasoline and a thoughtless lie.
always everyone else’s fault that you’re so alone,
God gave you a body but you just have to show bone.
i’m either selfish or depressed there is no escape,
in constant battle with myself where thoughts take new shape.
both parties can’t win, so who do i choose?
myself for the first time, or you? a lose-lose.
so tell me, why should i be your savior,
if there are no rewards for good behavior?
The Healing
by The Cowl Editor on September 16, 2021
Poetry
by Grace O’Connor ’22
She slowly heals as time pulls her forward.
She holds tight onto the past like an old stuffed animal,
As she is afraid of what the future will hold.
The future is a sky stuffed with millions of stars.
She is mesmerized by the stars that look down at her.
She tries to connect how her past got her here,
As she connects the stars in her mind making shapes,
She tries to make sense of her life, her purpose.
Little does she know she’s a minuscule part of something much bigger.
Her voice is silenced in a large sea,
She can decide if she wants to make her voice count or be held back,
By her thoughts that glue her in place.
She lets the glue tear her skin as she pulls away,
It is painful and she is vulnerable,
But she needs to breathe.
She escapes from the glue’s tight hug, naked.
She’s been trapped in a glass box,
Put hate marks on her skin,
Been pinned down,
Blinded with rose-colored glasses,
Refused to swallow solid food for months,
A bubble stuck in time,
Unable to breathe,
Only comforted by string lights swimming through the air.
She always had the power to pull herself away,
From her own abusive thoughts which held her back
From true bliss her entire life.
She learns to love herself slowly, but hesitantly.
Her mind craves the comfort of the glue.
She craves infinite possibilities like the stars that glimmer in the sky.
She made her decision and it is to live every day to her its fullest,
Even when times get hard and unbearable.
She does this because she owes it to herself,
No one can replace her in this world,
Because she is not replaceable.
Once she finds her internal confidence she will be unstoppable.
She is Grace, and she is no longer ashamed.
Succulents
by The Cowl Editor on September 16, 2021
Poetry
by Taylor Rogers ’24
Green ribbons greedily grow,
Spilling out of their small pots
Like humans, they reach for the stars,
Traveling higher and higher
Diligently, I water these tiny ribbons,
Watching keenly as they grow
They steal from the soil below them,
Clinging onto miniscule buds of water
As they grow, they begin to invade my space,
Creeping over my shoulder as I read
The ribbons become darker,
Matching the color of the vivid forest outside
With my succulents, I grow,
Aiming for the glittery sky
The two of us grow together,
Continuously hoping that one day, we will fly
The Writer
by The Cowl Editor on September 3, 2021
Poetry
When I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some weathered notebook tucked away
Behind the dusty novels. My childhood reads
These words—these words my childhood shapes
From airy nothing into lines and scenes.
With ballpoint tip to page, with blue ink running dry,
I scratch and dot my i’s and cross my t’s,
Letters becoming words, words brought to life.
And think, these stories, inscribed on every page—
Reflections of my mind, blurred photographs—
Implore to be preserved eternally.
So let my work’s life last beyond my age,
Let it be more than just my epitaph—
My fount of youth, my immortality.