Two Poems
by Sushanth Shyamsundar
PIRATED DVD, FRIDAY NIGHT
The horror film freezes
right when the ghost turns.
Rhea smacks the DVD player
like Jigsaw has started
a timer inside it.
On screen, the girl from The Ring
crawls through static again, hair first,
generational trauma second.
In the corner, the shadow looks too much
like The Grudge waiting to make that throat sound.
Someone says,
“This is why you don’t watch cursed tapes.”
Someone else says,
“Shut up, put Saw after this.”
We are supposed to be scared of the well,
the tape, the curse arriving by phone.
But I am more scared of Meera from my section sharing one blanket
and touching my knee every time the screen screams.
Outside, someone’s Nokia plays a polyphonic ringtone.
Inside, the disc skips and the ghost walks backwards into her own bad edit.
Rhea says, “Cheap copy.”
I say, “Put it back.”
Fear is better when it buffers.
Every Final Destination kid knows the ordinary thing
is always the trap.
Because the monster is less dangerous than the hand
still resting against mine.
FINAL DESTINATION, SCHOOL BUS STOP
After Final Destination,
everything near school
looks personally involved
in organized tragedy.
The loose electric wire.
The bent signboard.
The water bottle rolling
towards the road
with suspicious confidence.
At the bus stop,
we discuss death
like it is on a timetable.
“Imagine the tyre bursts in 10 minutes.”
“Imagine the glass shop explodes tomorrow.”
“Imagine in one hour that aunty’s coconut falls,
hits the scooter mirror,
the mirror hits the dog,
the dog runs into the ladder.,.”
“Stop,” Rhea says.
“You’re writing the sequel.”
Behind us,
someone hums the Jaws theme
even though this is a bus stop
and the only shark here
is the corner store owner across from school.
Meera says
Samara would never survive Indian traffic.
Rhea says
Kayako from The Grudge
would crawl out of one pothole
and choose hell.
The boy with eyeliner says
Leatherface would take one look
at our school toilets
and say, “No need. They are already screwed.”
Everyone laughs and looks up.
A crow lands on the transformer
like it’s auditioning for Final Destination 2.
The bus arrives late.
Naturally.
We climb in anyway,
brave as idiots,
holding our heavy bags,
our secret playlists,
our unfinished homework,
our dramatic little lives
like the day has not been
setting up the kill
since the first bell.
Sushanth Shyamsundar is an Indian poet and writer based in Chennai. He performs spoken-word poetry as Rakshasan, writing about queerness, grief, family, mental health, absurdity, and the strange negotiations of being human. His poem “MY ADOPTED DOG IS AN ACCIDENTAL EXORCIST” appeared in Mosaic Lit Journal. His favorite pizza toppings: extra pepperoni, extra cheese and garlic butter!
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