{"id":5164,"date":"2025-08-05T19:25:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T19:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/?page_id=5164"},"modified":"2026-03-04T20:19:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:19:50","slug":"two-poems-4","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-6-winter-2025-2027\/two-poems-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr \/>\n<h4><em>Jessica Scheier<\/em><\/h4>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Narnia<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We crouch on the front porch steps.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A canvas of green and brown before us,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The sound of cicadas rattles our eardrums.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Beads of sweat meander down our faces.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You whittle a stick with a kitchen knife,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">While I tense at the worst-case scenario.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The finished product a curved stick with notches,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The string I scavenge from a drawer taut around both ends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Satisfaction and pride short-lived when tension breaks our bow.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We flee to the tree that splits in two,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our portal to the other world.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My fingers run over rough flakes of tree bark,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Heads peer through to see no change.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We slash through foliage to reach the creek,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Your obnoxious basketball shorts catch on thorns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Sunlight filters through the tall trees,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Delicate designs etch into our skin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Water trickles lightly down a scale of rocks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The stillness of the vast pool,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The illusion of shallowness at the edge,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I follow your downward gaze.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The reflection in the water reveals your intentions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThere\u2019s a dropoff.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">First step, your moment of invincibility.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Second step, your moment of smugness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Third step, your moment of downfall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I laugh as the water swallows you halfway,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Our hands clasp to steady you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI told you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>For You<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I chased you down the creaky staircase, and we merged together with your siblings and became one\u2013our only goal: the wide open fields, the animals, and the freedom that called us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for all the times we lazily laid down on hay, playing with kittens your stray had recently birthed, and jumped across towering haystacks as tall as the sky, with straw stabbing and poking through our clothes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for all the pillow and water balloon fights, the football games, and manhunts; our laughs radiated innocence, the only concern family staying together, me recently adopted for two weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for your family I was enthralled by\u2014buzzing, daily dinners at the kitchen table, and heartwarming breakfasts where your father ruffled my hair like I was his own daughter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for the nights all five of us would sleep together on the floor, accompanied by fluffy thick blankets and pillows, the television static soothing our senses.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for the nights we would watch you play a racing game, your face buried in the screen, your hands void of tension and full of mischief as you drove backwards on the track\u2013I remember our laughs meshing together, two wavelengths aligned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for the night you fell asleep first, and we painted your nails pink and black, incessant giggles held back by our rib cages; you woke up the next morning laughing with us, feigning anger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for you on that burning sunny day, we ran to guide the ambulance and police officers towards you, who were surrounded by unyielding metal, with your sister begging and your brother keeling over.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is for you a couple of weeks later, we released blue and purple everywhere in the sky, hoping you would remember your favorite colors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong>Jessica Scheier<\/strong> is from Frenchtown, NJ. She graduated from SAS in 2025 with a major in computer science and a minor in critical intelligence studies. She&#8217;s excited to explore her creative side more in the future through writing and crocheting.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jessica Scheier &nbsp; Narnia &nbsp; We crouch on the front porch steps. A canvas of green and brown before us, The sound of cicadas rattles our eardrums. &nbsp; Beads of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-6-winter-2025-2027\/two-poems-4\/\" class=\"\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2513,"featured_media":0,"parent":5102,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5164","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Two Poems - Writers House Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-6-winter-2025-2027\/two-poems-4\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Poems - Writers House Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jessica Scheier &nbsp; Narnia &nbsp; We crouch on the front porch steps. 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