Tag: Portfolio
A Purgatory of Trains
by trogers5 on March 3, 2022
Poetry
Sarah McLaughlin ’23
You are Plato, turned to heaven’s forms,
I am Aristotle, here on Earth.
You are Dante, looking up beyond the wall of rock,
I am Virgil, eyes upon the ground, my own consultant.
But are you really the sturdy tower, unshakeable?
What secures your soul in stringent grip? What holds mine?
You don’t make me neglect the passage of time
But make me all too cognizant.
Chocolate-Colored Mousse
by trogers5 on March 3, 2022
Poetry
Grace O’Connor ’22
She waits for hours as her hair is bleached,
Piece by piece slowly being painted,
In order to not expose her dark roots.
She uses a mitt to spread the chocolate-colored mousse on her skin,
Spreading it over every inch of her body,
Waiting for it to slowly melt into her dry, pale skin.
Her mascara wakes up her tired eyes.
Complementing the blue in them,
Hiding her exhaustion and natural beauty.
The powder is held on by clear polish and strengthened by blue light,
Tearing away, slowly killing her soft nail underneath,
The tough layer holds onto what is left.
The tight clothing she wears hugs her rib cage.
Her skin is vulnerable to the wind.
Goosebumps are being pushed to the surface.
Her accessories are meant to distract the eye from her body,
The bling on her gold jewelry meant to hold stares,
Turning others’ eyes away from her face.
She pushes the thin lens against her eye
As the water starts to puddle in the corner.
She refuses to touch the lens that mocks her in the corner.
Fear.
She fears scrutiny and her dignity being shredded away.
Her dignity stuck to her like loose, dead skin,
Waiting to be peeled off with a simple scratch.
The temporariness of artificiality leaves her panicking,
Waiting, watching it slowly melt away day by day,
Till she can paint herself again, hiding every mark she dislikes.
Her paintbrush is held by her firm grip,
But her hand is exhausted, she loosens this grip steadily,
Till she drops her paintbrush and looks at herself in the mirror.
Recurring Dream
by trogers5 on March 3, 2022
Portfolio
AJ Worsley ’22
“I didn’t even realize it was the same place until this morning. My hands were vibrating, and I had no idea where I was. The side of my face, only mildly sticky from drool, glued me to my pillow. My bed was no longer the only familiar environment.”
I am standing in the middle of the woods when it begins, standing alongside trees taller than Him, the clouds rolling through them. I kick my sandals off my feet and run my fingers through my pockets. In my rummaging I find a set of keys. I look at the keys in my hand and drop them down into the sand. Why is there so much sand in the forest? Barefoot and empty pocketed, I begin running. Eventually there is an opening in the trees, and I run towards that. Upon getting closer I realize it is a cliff and I cannot slow down my momentum causing me to run and jump into what looks to be a massive quarry in the middle of this forest, at the bottom of which lies a lake for me to land in. For a moment I am flying. It’s the shortest moment and simultaneously the longest ever. Trees surround the quarry, the true heart of the forest, and in looking down I see the water is not a bright crystal blue, but a muddy green, tainted with ecological hurt. It resembles a Missouri swampland, beautiful shades of green that you fear because of what lies beneath. At the moment of impact, I rush under the water like a missile, my feet touching the bottom of the lake, sending me popping back up like a float. When I rise above there are suddenly dozens of worn houses floating on the lake. They are decrepit, worn, with massive holes on the side, shards of glass from broken windows on their front porch, likely housed by alligators. There are trees down in the water now too. They hang over the houses and decorate the landscape for a much less fearful green. There is only one house that is intact, so I swim towards it. Pushing myself up onto the porch, I hear rattling in my pockets. Soaked, I stick my hand in and feel the same set of keys. I knock on the door, and nobody is around to answer. After trying several keys, the last one finally unlocks the door. As I begin to walk in—
“And that’s where it ends every time. I wake up. I never get to explore the houses or familiarize myself with the environment. I expect to wake up in my bed soaked every time, but I am always dry. There is no quarry, no house, no forest.”
Her pen moves across the paper rapidly as if she were a sketch artist.
“What’re you writing down?” I ask.
“Do you consider yourself a pessimist?” she asks, dodging my question.
“Well, if I was an optimist I probably wouldn’t be in therapy.”
She smirks.
“Have you heard the theories about what it means to jump off a cliff in your dreams? On the negative side, people have said that it could relate to some sort of distress in your conscious life, a lack of control or a strong sense of impulse. On the lighter side, it could relate to a recent victory, or a fresh start.”
Her buzzer goes off.
“Well, that concludes our session for today,” she begins. “I’d really like to pick this up from right here next week.” She puts the pen and paper down and turns around to drink from her glass of water.
I lean over to see what she has written down but all I see is a vivid drawing of the quarry and the tall trees. I don’t question her. I just look forward to returning to the woods with the keys in my pocket with the hope that next time I will see what lies in that house.
Tiff and Earl
by trogers5 on February 17, 2022
Features
Dear Tiff and Earl,
I slipped and fell on the ice in front of an entire civ class coming out of Ruane this morning. No one even helped me up (what happened to “Friars Hold Doors”?). How do I recover from this embarrassment?
Sincerely,
Professional Ice Skater
Dear Professional Ice Skater,
The best way out of a faux pas is to make it seem intentional. Don’t be afraid to be idiosyncratic. You head right back out and wipe out on that ice as dramatically as you can. If you’re nervous, have a shot of some liquid courage first. Repeat as necessary until your reputation is no longer that of a ham-footed klutz, but that of a brave and interesting individual. It’s foolproof, believe me.
Cheers!
Tiff
Dear Professional Ice Skater,
Revenge is a dish best served ice-cold. The night before the next time this civ class meets, dump buckets of cold water on the spot you tripped on and let mother nature do the rest. Those students will rue the day that they betrayed the most sacred law of Providence College: “Friars Hold Doors.” Sure, some innocent people might succumb to your icy trap as well, but if your ice skating career doesn’t work out, this will make for a great villain origin story.
Watch out for ice, ice, baby!
Earl
Performative Activism Sucks Ass
by trogers5 on February 17, 2022
Poetry
Taylor Rogers ’24
Performativity’s persuasive lies pour out of your pale mouth,
Claims that are far from true stretching out your already thin lips.
The more you speak, the more my stomach resembles a worn-out washing machine,
Churning your chilling words and soiling already clean clothes.
Each second feels like days as you speak,
Continuing to weave your white web filled with white lies,
Encouraging wrongful interpretations of a movement you know nothing about.
Despite never wearing my hole-filled Converse,
You preach that your journey and mine have been the same,
Spreading your hateful light that constantly dims my own.
You turn a movement that was meant to be colorful into one that highlights a sinister white,
Speaking to an experience you have never actually lived.
While your aim is to teach, what you do is far from effective,
As you erase the stories that need to be told with your made-up fantasies of being a savior.
Trojan Horse
by trogers5 on February 17, 2022
Creative Non-Fiction
Taylor Maguire ’24
It was April in New York. There was that weird uneasiness in the air that made your skin itch. All anyone could say was that “it is absolutely gorgeous outside,” yet the weather almost seemed too good to be true.
“I don’t know, I just have a bad feeling about today,” I explained to my friend Elijah, who stood at my door trying to pry me out of my sardine can of an apartment.
“Jules, seriously, I don’t want to hear it,” he said. “You need to get out of this cave full of unwashed sweaters.” He wasn’t wrong to critique the apartment. Usually, the curtains were never closed and natural light would drown the place. It had a big poster of Billy Joel and a What’s Up, Doc? movie poster that I bought for two dollars at a flea market. There was a big fluffy green carpet on which many of my friends had fallen asleep when the walk to their own place was too grueling of a journey to make at 3 a.m. But now it seemed like the joy had been sucked out of it, leaving the shell of what it symbolized. Even the walls that I had painted a ballerina pink seemed to have lost their sweet touch amongst the sea of navy blue wool that pooled at my ankles.
Before leaving, I changed out of the Talking Heads shirt I had been living in for the past week. I put on my mother’s old magenta skirt that went down to my ankles. It was all tattered at the bottom, despite my grandmother’s many attempts to fix it with her tailoring fingers, which were now chewed up by severe arthritis. I also had on one of those cropped shirts that read TEEN ANGST in bright red letters. It was my second year of college, and I still couldn’t escape the TEEN ANGST phase from high school that was brought upon by birth control, breakups with boyfriends, and fights with parents about not being able to cut your own curtain bangs.
We went to a bodega on the Upper West Side that sold egg sandwiches for four dollars, and got one each with a Diet Coke.
“It’s on me,” Elijah said, looking over at me while he pays.
Elijah had a pair of heterochromatic eyes that everyone in the tristate area fell in love with. The first semester of college, I convinced myself that I was in love with Elijah. We had met for the first time in film class and eventually I found myself spending time thinking about him through statistics and ceramics. However, that dreamy, idealized version of him quickly dissolved at the seams when we kissed in the Rambles of Central Park, and there was simply no spark. After pulling away he remarked, “I think it’s better that we stay friends. And I’m not saying that to get out of that complicated awkwardness, I’m saying it because I mean it.”
Elijah’s lovers came and went so quickly; you couldn’t pick them out of a lineup even if held at gunpoint. The only thing I could say about Elijah for sure is that he doesn’t like blondes. But, I mean, who really likes blondes? Anyways, we laugh about it now.
As we entered Central Park now through the 86th Street entrance, I could feel Elijah looking at me. It was that look that you receive from your parents when they deliver the news that your goldfish died. Or from your college guidance counselor, when you get rejected from a school they told you was a safety.
“What?” I said.
“I didn’t say anything,” Elijah replied.
What I admired about Elijah was how he preferred the company of a caterpillar to a butterfly, never caring about the rules and restrictions of the college status quo. He was a creature of habit, never straying from his routine. He always spent his mornings filling out crossword puzzles in my tiny kitchen, his afternoons at the skatepark, and his nights waiting tables at the restaurant around the corner. He always appeared interested in any conversation even if the topic was dull, and he always gave people the time of day even if they didn’t deserve it. What I hated about Elijah was the certain looks he whips out during times like those. They were easy to decipher after putting up with him for two years. The pitiful expression in his eyes that popped out at me then was as startling as a jack-in-the-box.
“I’ll just say this. I have never been more happy now that Jax is gone.”
“I don’t think I have ever felt more miserable in my life,” I replied.
“Think of the positive,” he said, grabbing an egg sandwich from the bag. “Me and him will no longer be in a silent life-or-death battle for your attention.” My ex, Jax, and Elijah never saw eye to eye. Part of the reason we split was because he was always accusing me of cheating on him with Elijah. Breaking up with someone after a long period of time feels like you’re flushing all those precious memories you wrote about in your diary down the toilet to join the rest of New York’s sewage. Sprinkle in the accusations of cheating and lying, and it really just leaves you with a shitty feeling in your gut.
“Falling out of love with someone takes time, I get it. I know the only thing you want to do is wear sweatpants and rewatch Girls for the hundredth time, but you can’t avoid going out to do things just to simply avoid him entirely. It’ll just damage you more, believe me. I mean if I did that, you’d never see me downtown, that’s for sure. Besides, I always said Jax was a prick. And I can say that because he wore designer clothes to Washington Square Park. And only pricks do that.”
“He did love that purple Balenciaga shirt,” I said.
Then suddenly, as if we had manifested his appearance, Jax appeared out of thin air, hand-in-hand with an unremarkable blonde girl beside the Mister Softee parked across the street from the two of us.
“He would settle for a blonde,” Elijah said, and I couldn’t help but laugh.
Tiff and Earl
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Features
Dear Tiff and Earl,
My boyfriend won’t take me on a Valentine’s Day date because it’s too close to Super Bowl Sunday. Should I ditch him for Joe Burrow?
Sincerely,
Big Bengals Fan
Dear Big Bengals Fan,
Don’t give up on your man just yet! With a little creativity, you can have your cake and eat it, too. Combine your Valentine’s Day with his Super Bowl by serving classic game day snacks with a romantic twist—for instance, a seven-layer dip not of beans and cream cheese but of all sorts of aphrodisiacs—and by programming your TV to play slideshows of the two of you as a couple instead of commercials. No doubt you can come up with plenty of other little ways to remind him that he’s your special quarterback. Be ingenious! He sounds like he’s worth it.
Cheers!
Tiff
Dear Big Bengals Fan,
While I am completely in favor of you getting revenge on your football-fanatic boyfriend by ditching him for a man who can actually play the sport, why go for a Bengal when you could have the GOAT? Now that Tom Brady has officially retired, the man is going to have plenty of time on his hands. What better way for him to spend it than a romantic Valentine’s Day date with a college student? Maybe you could even bring a friend for a double date with Gronk.
Your even bigger Pats fan,
Earl
How to write about love, when you yourself are not in love:
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Features
Kathryn Libertini ’23
- Download Tinder and Hinge for inspiration.
- Scroll through the apps with your roommates, creating narratives and citing opinions that will most likely never materialize (but, hey, there’s a chance).
- Delete Tinder and Hinge.
- Tell your roommates Valentine’s Day is a “Hallmark Holiday” incentivized by capitalism.
- Watch How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and 27 Dresses.
- Question what “love” even is.
- Download Tinder and Hinge for a reality check.
- Delete Tinder and Hinge for a reality check.
- Question what “reality” even is.
- Call your therapist back.
The Underground
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Parody
Kate Ward ’23
By the time of his lunch break, Edmund was exhausted from an early morning preparing a case to defend his client. It wasn’t looking good, and frankly, Edmund had little faith that his client would get out of this unscathed. He walked outside to the loud street and waited under a streetlamp for the “walk” sign to appear. The wind, which smelled awfully polluted, tousled his neatly-kept hair and sent the tassels of his bolo tie flitting around. He placed a hand on his chest to try to prevent it, but just like his efforts to strengthen the case with his current client, it proved to be futile.
He crossed the street and walked up four blocks to his favorite haunt, a tiny tea shop that had the best lavender-vanilla tea.
Lanam looked up as the door jingled. He snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and pulled his mask up over his nose. Seeing it was Edmund, he paused a moment, hands fumbling with the delicate porcelain cup he was polishing.
“Good morning sir, what can I get started for you?” he asked as he set the cup down.
Edmund looked over the menu, fingers poised on his chin, rubbing a spot there as he read and reread the options.
“Morning.” He paused and glanced at Lanam’s name tag. “Morning, Lanam. Say, may I have a cup of the lavender-vanilla tea with a bit of milk? Actually, make that two.”
Lanam was taken aback—Edmund was switching up his usual order. “Do you have someone joining you?”
Edmund made himself comfortable at a table by the window, legs crossed as he skimmed through a real estate magazine. “Oh, no but I was hoping you would?” He glanced around the shop. It was empty save for the two of them, a quiet hour amidst the chaos outside. “If you aren’t too busy, of course.” A small smile graced his face, blue eyes twinkling.
The barista made a noise of annoyance and continued to assemble the two teas. Edmund liked listening to the process—the meticulous craft of tea-making, especially with loose leaves and complex flavoring, was mesmerizing. He found it to be far more interesting than brownstone apartments on glossy pages.
Lanam sprinkled lavender petals into the cup and flourished it with a dash of milk. “Did you want the other one to have milk?”
“Make it how you want it,” Edmund replied, dipping his chin in an affirming nod.
Another scoff and a dribble of honey later, Lanam passed the barrier and came over to Edmund’s table. He carefully folded and set aside the magazine; he hadn’t been able to get past the first few pages anyway. He took the tiny cup in his hand and took a sip, and only then did Lanam take a seat.
“Why tea?” Edmund asked, cup nestling against its plate.
“Why law?” Lanam returned, bristling at the question.
Edmund lifted a hand. “I didn’t mean any offense. I was just trying to make conversation.” He found himself a bit more flustered than usual. He was used to clients being emotional, but at work, he could detach himself from the situation. This felt different.
Lanam sighed and smoothed his hair back. “Whatever. I guess I settled on tea because no one could do it the way I liked it, so…” He shrugged and pulled his mask up once more.
“I chose law because I wanted to help those who couldn’t help themselves. Get them out of situations that they didn’t choose to be in.” Edmund’s eyes glossed a little, recalling something distant.
A few beats of silence passed before Lanam nodded. “That’s very noble of you.”
“It’s just a job. But…thank you.” Edmund took another sip. “How did you come up with the name for this place?”
“The Underground? I don’t know. It was a place I was fond of as a kid, so…I decided to carry the name over to here.” He shrugged. “Look, I’m not interested in small talk, really, I’ll be honest with you.”
Edmund finished his tea and fished around in his wallet. With a thunk he set it on the table and gave Lanam a look. “I’m just glad you’re interested in talking at all. Here, I haven’t paid you. This has been the best tea yet.”
Lanam took the bills he offered and slid them into his apron pocket with a curt nod before getting up and carrying his own cup and plate to the back, and then coming back to get the other. He picked up the dish and the cup in one hand. Edmund caught his other hand and held fast. Lanam nearly dropped the dishes in shock. He looked down at their joined hands and gave the lawyer a startled look.
Edmund rose from his seat. “So, you don’t like small talk. That’s fine. Let me cut to the chase.” He paused and was met with a scowl. “Let me take you out to dinner.”
Frankly, that was the last thing he expected, so Lanam was caught off guard. He averted his eyes. His cruel mask had slipped and there was no recovering it, so he sighed. “Fine. One dinner. It’s not like it’s going to change anything.”
Edmund smiled warmly and dropped his hand, heading toward the door before glancing over his shoulder. “Oh, make sure you count those bills before putting them in the register.”
Lanam scoffed as he hurried behind the counter, trying desperately to hide the blush that had crawled up his face. “What kind of idiot doesn’t count bills before putting them away?” he grumbled as the door slammed shut, Edmund’s laugh carrying out into the street. He thumbed through the bills. Aside from being overpaid, he didn’t see anything inherently wrong with them. What was that lawyer on about? Then he noticed that one of the singles had a slight tear in the upper corner, and directly below it, ten digits scrawled in blue pen.
“Unbelievable,” he sighed.
Listomania
by trogers5 on February 10, 2022
Features
Biggest Red Flags
- Asked me out to the PC basketball game
- Is a business major
- Has a pet monkey
- Doesn’t read The Cowl
- Is in their red hair phase (no offense, Sarah)
- Goes to URI
- Is Nate Jacobs (from Euphoria)
- Posts regularly on Yik Yak
- Gets hazelnut or pecan flavored coffee
- Has a favorite song from Certified Lover Boy
- Doesn’t thank the UG2 workers
- Prefers Ray over Alum
- Makes thirst traps on TikTok
- Chooses Old’s over Brad’s
- Doesn’t like Chicken Nugget Thursdays
- Posted about their lost Airpods on the PC mobile app
- Lives in Guzman
- Calls Suites “McCarthy”
- Doesn’t like Dean Sears’s emails
- Willingly has an 8:30 every day
- Has a red “Saturdays are for the boys” flag
- Picked me.