When I’m in the Driver’s Seat,
it feels like I’m operating a death machine.
My fingers grip the wheel with
wrist-aching tightness.
My right foot hovers over the brake with
knee-locking precision.
My father angrily navigates
the route to my brother’s house.
The same route we go twice a week.
One I should’ve ingrained
in my body long ago.
Sensible memory only forms when
fear takes a backseat. For me,
when my mind speaks,
my body lags.
I think to turn right;
I slam the brake to a still.
I am at my destination;
I drive on past.
My exit isn’t for another 10 kilometres.
I take the very next one.
Mistakes abound, I carry this
coffin to country roads.
An exhale escapes.
The rain-kissed countryside
towers its mint-green trees
like a canopy above my head.
The road becomes a river before my eyes, and I
am a mere boatman floating, claiming
these waters as mine.
My clenched chest soothes, and a poem
begins to blossom.
My grip loosens, leg un-stiffens.
I write a line, and
another line and
another line and
I miss my turn.
My body shifts
back into gear, my mind
back into paranoia.
My father’s huffs
thud upon my ears,
a gong strike.
I want to speak, make
tumble the apologies, but
my tongue won’t move.
I think to myself:
I’m sorry. I’m sorry
I can’t do what’s common
for others. I’m sorry
I complicate the casual tasks.
I want to will this weakness out of me,
but the harder I try, the more it persists.
I’ve spent my past trying to survive—
fear and dissociation. But to drive
is to be present,
one movement at a time.
I’ve mastered survival, but I have
yet to learn living.
Bear with me, I’m trying.
I swear I’m trying.
Rise Again
Content Warning: Discussions of Severe Depression
I sink into my bed, rotting
in the same clothes for the past three days.
My hair matted, my body clutched by a tiredness
that sleep can’t fix.
These days, I feel like a ball of cotton, pulled
into wisps so small that it was like I never existed at all.
In the corner, I see the flickering
of my night lamp:
its beige hue a fraction of what it used to be.
Its light gets softer and softer
until it shuts off for good.
The room’s faint glow is gone.
The darkness greets me,
and its silence grows fearsome.
I hate it.
I can’t stay like this.
I will my torso to roll, let my legs
flop along the side of the bed.
I lower my foot to the floor,
toes first, then heel.
Re-learning the feeling of ground.
When the minutes, three
or thirty, bring familiarity
back to me,
I rise from the edge of the bed.
Slowly,
I pull my matted mess out of my face.
I slip my bare feet into my tattered shoes.
I leave my bed.
I leave my room.
I leave the house.
The autumn wind rushes into me,
tossing me about like a ragdoll.
My hair blows forward, loose strands sticking to my glasses.
It’s as if I’m looking at the world through window blinds.
But even still, I drag this body of mine,
unkept and made of lead, and walk
towards the sun.
Sruthi Amalan (she/her), pen name “Cypher,” is a self-taught brown and queer Tamil diaspora poet living in Canada. Her work has been featured by the Ontario Poetry Society and is set to appear in the Canadian Syncopation Literary Journal, Queer Gaze Mag, and Arcana Poetry Press. Sruthi self-published her first poetry chapbook, Where the Clay Meets the Flame, in February 2024.
Instagram: @sruthi_amalan_0
Substack: samalan101.substack.com
Linktree: Sruthi Amalan