After the Accident

by Sushanth Shyamsundar

He was hit by a car.

Then a coma.

Then flowers.

Then a tribute concert.

That is the whole story
if you hate mercy.

One day he was laughing
with his ugly beautiful mouth
strawberry-blonde
blood-soaked hair.
Surfer’s legs that
would never move
again.

Next day, machines
manufactured
his breathing.

Then even they
gave up.

No lesson.
No metaphor.
Just road.
Just metal.
Just a boy
with love that
had travelled
an ocean
to be close.

Not a
blameless boy,
but still.

His God looked away
at the exact wrong
fucking second.

And still,
someone had to carry
what was left.

Not the body.
The love.
The joke he ruined.
The chair he warmed.

The name that still turned
people toward the door.

So, we gave him away badly,
in stories,
in joints,
in late-night drives
and long conversations,
in crying at the wrong time,
in holding someone else
a little while longer
because he could not be held.

That is what grief does.
You still remember
even though
you banished
the loudest memories
into the deepest silence
your body could muster.
You preach kindness
only because of loss.

Eighteen years later,
and I’m still angry,
still keeping place for him
because I don’t know
where else to
keep him.

Eighteen years later,
and I can’t believe
someone else
got to walk away.

---

Sushanth Shyamsundar is an Indian poet and writer based in Chennai. His work explores queerness, grief, family, horror, humour, performance, and the strange violence of being perceived differently. He performs spoken word as Rakshasan, a 50,000-year-old demon parasite, and is the founder of Rakshasan Media.