{"id":5176,"date":"2025-08-05T20:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T20:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/?page_id=5176"},"modified":"2026-03-08T12:42:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T12:42:11","slug":"two-poems-7","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-6-winter-2025-2027\/two-poems-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr \/>\n<h4><em>Veronica Matthews<\/em><\/h4>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Good Daughters Don\u2019t Leave Through the Front Door<\/b><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">We were in the long, narrow bathroom\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Muted rose-pink walls,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A marble slab atop chestnut cabinets.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Further down,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A white toilet,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A white shower,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And between them,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A small window.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Fumes from his head stung<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As he sat in the tub,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Complaining about the burning sensation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Downstairs,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pots and pans clattered,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Voices rising and falling,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An occasional shared laugh<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">As they cooked rice and curries.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wondered which smell<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Would overpower the house first.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I told him to suck it up<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And opened the small window<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Once I started to feel my head spin.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Standing on a stool,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Resting my elbows on the frame,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I fit perfectly.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The moon looked full and bright.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The wind brushed through the trees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And when I closed my eyes,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I could picture the sea\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">An entirely different world<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In a frame that perfectly fit me.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I\u2019ve used this bathroom so many times,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">But that was the first time<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I looked out that window.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I wondered what people would see from the outside\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">One window open,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A girl staring out,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her brother cussing,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Her parents dancing around each other\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Obliviously shouting and laughing in the kitchen light,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Chopping, sizzling, frying,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The rice cooker\u2019s shrill whistle.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Doors open in the back and front,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Letting the smells of home<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">And my vision<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Waft into the night.<\/span><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Bone White<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Uncles with pot bellies, aunties decked in gold, fingers pinching my cheeks, hands piling spoonfuls of curry\u2014heaps that made my insides churn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My mother never knew what to say when they pulled her aside and murmured in their mother tongue, She\u2019s a wisp, ready to be blown away, not knowing I understood.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I laughed in my head and imagined flying in the wind, before running off with the others, spinning in circles, skirts flaring wide\u2014 churidars, kurtas, half saris vibrant against our golden skin, playing beneath the sun.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Morning comes cold. The queen bed stretches endlessly. I drag my bones downstairs, fearful of what waits below.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Gross. Gross. Gross.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I eat. Gag. Swallow. Repeat.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Across the table, He watches from the mantle\u2014captured 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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\u2014their ceramic smiles taunting me\u2014 and I get dressed.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I saw His ribs\u2014the 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\u2019m too picky.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">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.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Veronica Matthews<\/strong> writes, &#8220;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.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veronica Matthews &nbsp; Good Daughters Don\u2019t Leave Through the Front Door &nbsp; We were in the long, narrow bathroom\u2014 Muted rose-pink walls, A marble slab atop chestnut cabinets. &nbsp; Further &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/writers-house-review\/vol-6-winter-2025-2027\/two-poems-7\/\" 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-5176","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-7\/\" \/>\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=\"Veronica Matthews &nbsp; 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