Sonder

The builders smoke life into your length – you are a train,

whether you like it or not. In a place and time chosen for you; 

you snake in and out of valleys, vents, varied terrain; 

out of your windows, life events comprise many a view.

And some of them happen to you – life and land conspire

to bring you to a station you only had part of the say getting to.

People come in and out of you, bringing and taking as they desire;

some only bringing, others only taking – they are trains, too. 

Your direction is determined by you, the road, people on board;

with peaks and troughs to enjoy or endure, and unto others do.

Finally you reach your last stop – and, with luck, a reckoning sword?

A peaceful dismemberment, a climactic crash, or a cliff to fly the coup!

This poem was previously published in Coze, a Curtin University student magazine, in 2023

Devahuti Chaliha is just finishing off her Neuroscience PhD, and can't wait to finally learn how to be a normal human. So she's learning how to adult, which now includes lugging along the postdoc extension of her project like a clingy child. Between gleefully experimenting on humans, she loves historical detective novels and logic puzzles. Her occasional escape tactics involve singing, casting, graphic design, charity work, and literally flying away (on a plane). She watches horror movies for a laugh, and is equally merciless towards violators of human rights.