Two Poems
Veronica Matthews
Good Daughters Don’t Leave Through the Front Door
We were in the long, narrow bathroom—
Muted rose-pink walls,
A marble slab atop chestnut cabinets.
Further down,
A white toilet,
A white shower,
And between them,
A small window.
Fumes from his head stung
As he sat in the tub,
Complaining about the burning sensation.
Downstairs,
Pots and pans clattered,
Voices rising and falling,
An occasional shared laugh
As they cooked rice and curries.
I wondered which smell
Would overpower the house first.
I told him to suck it up
And opened the small window
Once I started to feel my head spin.
Standing on a stool,
Resting my elbows on the frame,
I fit perfectly.
The moon looked full and bright.
The wind brushed through the trees.
And when I closed my eyes,
I could picture the sea—
An entirely different world
In a frame that perfectly fit me.
I’ve used this bathroom so many times,
But that was the first time
I looked out that window.
I wondered what people would see from the outside—
One window open,
A girl staring out,
Her brother cussing,
Her parents dancing around each other
Obliviously shouting and laughing in the kitchen light,
Chopping, sizzling, frying,
The rice cooker’s shrill whistle.
Doors open in the back and front,
Letting the smells of home
And my vision
Waft into the night.
Bone White
Uncles with pot bellies, aunties decked in gold, fingers pinching my cheeks, hands piling spoonfuls of curry—heaps that made my insides churn.
My mother never knew what to say when they pulled her aside and murmured in their mother tongue, She’s a wisp, ready to be blown away, not knowing I understood.
I laughed in my head and imagined flying in the wind, before running off with the others, spinning in circles, skirts flaring wide— churidars, kurtas, half saris vibrant against our golden skin, playing beneath the sun.
Morning comes cold. The queen bed stretches endlessly. I drag my bones downstairs, fearful of what waits below.
Gross. Gross. Gross.
I gag as I stare at two boiled eggs, pale and rubbery, salt and pepper clinging to wet white skin. A cup of warm milk, thick as dread. No amount of crying, begging, or stealthy trashing will save me.
I eat. Gag. Swallow. Repeat.
Across the table, He watches from the mantle—captured in careful brushstrokes, pale beneath a tree, fair-haired children kneeling, no trace of the Nazarene sun. One child struggles behind, divine light just out of reach.
They never cared when, years later, I said He was too fair, or that it was kitsch. They had carried Him from Kerala to Abu Dhabi to New Jersey, their grip unrelenting on that gold-gilded frame.
I stare at the wild scratches on the glass tabletop that my innocent Disney princess mug carved, my reflection mangled compared to Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora—their ceramic smiles taunting me— and I get dressed.
I sit at a wooden desk, walls alive with VeggieTales. Beside the grinning cucumber, the smiling tomato, a frail white man hung, nailed to the cross, blood seeping from head, palms, feet, side.
I saw His ribs—the same ones my mother pointed out on me in the bathroom mirror as she dried the dripping black mass of short curls, traced crosses on my skin for good measure, and sighed, I’m too picky.
She said it again, brimming with anger when I came home, my fish curry and rice untouched, but soaked in sickly sweet ketchup, a nasty concoction of my own making, to drown the scent that drove kids away.
Veronica Matthews writes, “What started as Veronica Mathews scribbling down imaginary scenarios, relatable characters, and a few poems just to humor herself somehow found its way to others after she shared her work in a Creative Writing class. Now she writes not only for herself, but with the small hope of helping someone else or at least making them laugh. These days, you can find her up late juggling her classes, studying, looking for internships, and working all while running on black coffee and insisting that writing is the best form of therapy.”