by The Cowl Editor on September 8, 2022

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Sarah McLaughlin ’23

On the couch, we talked about everything and nothing. A number of things I’d remember, and a number of things I already forget. The movie watched and other movies, the songs we heard and other music, the things we liked about our grandparents and the things we hated, how many of them were still alive, how many memories we had of them taking care of us in our childhoods, the earliest things we could remember, the things we tended to forget, the names and faces from our teenage years we already couldn’t place, what we thought the trajectory of the world might be, what our city might look like in five years, ten years, twenty, whether or not we’d ever want to go to space.

It amazed me how mundane conversations could be, and how easily they could become captivating. It scared me, too, how even in those mundane moments, my attention was captivated by the most unimaginative things, like the curve of her eyebrows, or the way she pronounced piano, or how the shadow above her collarbone changed shape as she shifted.

This was infatuation, I realized, in the hours I spent with her there. It wasn’t seeing someone as larger-than-life, as completely flawless, as the pinnacle of human beauty. It was noticing imperfections and being obsessed with them—not to fix them, like missing punctuation in an essay, but to notice them, understand them, commit them to memory. to see them not as flaws needing correction but as small pieces of a whole, to understand that whole as greater than the sum of its parts.

It wasn’t writing love songs and drawing hearts around their name, it was counting freckles and the ums between sentences.

by The Cowl Editor on September 8, 2022

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Dear Tiff and Earl, 

The first (official) darty of the semester is coming up, and my roommate and I still haven’t managed to find a solid friend group to accompany us. Any advice for quickly making friends so that we can live out our darty dreams?

Sincerely, 

Future Darty Crasher

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Dear FDC,

If you really want to wow the crowds, don’t worry about making friends before the darty—make them AT the darty! Just blunder in, latch on to someone, and thank them and all their friends for coming to YOUR little soirée. Jay Gatsby would approve!

Cheers! 

Tiff

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Dear Future Darty Crasher, 

Who says you need a big friend group to go to a darty? Have an intense pregame in your room, convince your roommate to explore Eaton Street with you, and rock the darty with confidence! As long as you follow the darty’s general theme, you’re sure to find a group of darty-loving people to adopt you and your roommate into their friend group!

Crush Your Darty Dreams!

Earl

by Mariela Flores '23 on September 8, 2022
Portfolio Staff

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You were so special. Like a beam of something good sitting next to me in every classroom, every space, every inch of the world as if we owned the air that we breathed in. 

You were so good to me. With words that wrapped me up warmly, just like a hug. With belly laughter that only you knew the sound of. With talking about futures neither of us knew how we would get a hold of––I sit here somewhere that feels too much like the past, waiting to know if you are close to your future. I hope you are well. 

I hate mourning you while you are still alive, living a life I thought I’d be a part of. I hate watching you grow from afar––I try to reach into the pixels and write something good, something clever, algo bonito. It doesn’t matter anymore. I know that. 

I’m not angry, I’m not even sad, you’ve let time fill that wound with new laughs, new people, new warmth, new futures, new stories. Still, I miss you. 

I wish you would have let me know it was the end of us. The end of catch ups in between brand new classes, brand new people, brand new lives. 

But you will fade into my memory, like a dream you wake up from after a deep sleep. You will fade like the friends before you and the ones who’ve come after. 

I think of you now and then, you’re like an echo in the air, you’re only with me briefly. 

I just hope you are well. I miss you, and I just hope you are well. 

by The Cowl Editor on September 8, 2022

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Worst Things To Hear During Syllabus Week

• “We’ll start class today with a quiz/pop quiz”
• “I don’t like to give out As”
• “Okay class, let’s take out the reading!”
• “No unexcused absences”
• “We won’t have breaks during class” (it’s a marathon class)
• “The final for this class will count for over half of your grade”
• “Attendance is required for this class”
• “No tech”
• “There’s gonna be a final paper and exam”
• “Barely anybody has passed this class before”
• “I will be cold calling”
• “Participation is worth 40% of your final grade”
• “Let’s do an ice breaker”

by Caitlin Bartley '24 on September 8, 2022
Portfolio Staff

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I worship you on a golden altar of daylight,
knees sinking into sand where I sit in supplication,
flaunting you unabashedly with my flushed cheeks
and freckled chest, wearing you like a cross.
You spoil me seductively,
appeasing my appetites with your alms
of apricots and aperol,
arousing my desire with the amorous caress
of your balmy evening air,
awakening my spirit in your seas
of salt and sin.
I would sacrifice the seasons to slave away
under your sun, yet you abandon me unapologetically
once the summer month is done.

by Taylor Rogers '24 on September 8, 2022
Portfolio Co-Editor

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An obnoxious yellow tag stands out on my black bathing suit,
The neon color disgusting me when I discover it;
My nails dig into the dirty label,
Trying but failing to rip it off,
As it stubbornly sticks to the dark suit.

Finally, I shed this label,
Yet I still feel the judging stares of others.
My bathing suit is clear of tags,
But not free from scrutiny,
As looks of disgust are continuously thrown my way.

Despite changing out of the sticky swimsuit,
Eyes still dig through my back,
Rendering my baby blue coverup pointless,
As their stares leave me naked,
Exposed to humanity’s harsh gaze.

Glancing in my mirror,
I try to find the answers to their stares.
Why do people keep staring at me?
I wonder, not noticing the bright label on my forehead,
Begging people to keep showering me with attention.

by trogers5 on May 5, 2022

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Dear Tiff and Earl,

I just downloaded LinkedIn and I don’t know how to polish my resume. Please send help, so I don’t spend the rest of my life living in my mom’s basement.

Thank You In Advance, 

Jobless Senior 

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Dear Jobless Senior,

Looks like someone didn’t take “Don’t wait, Slavin 108” to heart. You’ve had four years to take advantage of this ever-helpful, high-quality service, and now, with two weeks left before graduation, you have the audacity to ask me for advice? Better get used to those basement views, buddy.

Regards,

Earl

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Dear Jobless Senior,

You are asking the wrong people. We don’t even get paid to give you advice. Luckily, I love my mom’s basement. I have trained the mice to scavenge three meals a day for me, and I am building a rocket to the moon. What more can you ask of life?

Cheers,

Tiff

 

by trogers5 on May 5, 2022

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by Mariela Flores ‘23 

This Poem is for my best friend.

A goodbye is near, it lingers in our air.

I feel the goodbye when we share a meal in a comfortable silence––

I feel the goodbye during late nights when all I want is to absorb any time

I have left with you.

It is dramatic to say my life will change when you are off

seeing, feeling, experiencing all new things,

you will have a new rhythm, a new song.

I will not know the words.

You will grow into the person I’ve always known you could be

and you will meet new people whom you will dance with

until your feet are tired, and your cheeks are flushed

with the feeling of this new life. And I will watch from afar.

This is not a bitter end. You are not going far.

But I will miss all the nights, mornings, evenings, minutes, days

hours, seconds, all the time we had together in this place that never quite felt

like home until I knew you were in it. Friend.

Here’s to you and all lines you’ve crossed.

Here’s to the cries, the fights, the feeling that kept you in bed

and the sun that took you out of it. Here’s to it all.

I will not say goodbye.

But I will say I miss you.

As

      you

             cross

                        the

                                  stage

with your head held up high, I will smile.

And I will capture the moment and keep it pressed to the inside of

my mind. I miss you. The world is lucky to have you in it––

I am luckier to have known you for a lifetime, for a moment, for a time.

by trogers5 on May 5, 2022

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by Caitlin Bartley ’24

 

Reading tea leaves,

our silly tradition.

Two cups of steaming earl grey,

brewed bitter,

growing cold because of your omission.

 

I am frozen in time,

entranced by mugs of milky tea,

unaware that the café is closing,

trapped in a space

between fate and reality.

 

And although we were never proclaimed,

I can still see a future,

one that doesn’t end with my heart maimed,

held together by one

flimsy suture.

 

I have a thirst for prophecy,

my doubts must be relieved.

You’ll find me here waiting

like a fool,

eager to read your stupid tea leaves.

by trogers5 on May 5, 2022

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Seniors We Will Miss Next Year <3

• AJ Worsley
• Aidan Lerner 
• Marelle Hipolito
• Grace O’Connor
• Maura Campbell
• Addison Wakelin
• Julia McCoy
• Madeline Morkin
• Madison Palmieri
• Liam Tormey
• Leo Hainline
• Lillie Hunter
• Brooke Rioux
• Colleen Joyce
• Angie Nguyen
• Nicole Patano
• All of them <3