Some crossed,
some crossed by to catch others.
Many stood on the curb, too close,
In, out. In, out. –
Most rode until their destinations.
A few couldn’t be careless enough.
In Out, in Out. –
Each time, an overheated pain engulfs.
A sense of breakdown – Tss! Tss!
Repair status: more Ins, less Outs.
Yet, on constant crash protector duty,
dodging danger zones of others, for others, until kaput,
not wondering how to secure own loose belts and not get hurt,
especially when unloading is unorderly. Out, out, out. Tss! Tss! Tss –
They did them. Mine will do him.
Smile, protecting them selflessly,
ready to bet itself without a pledge
or dime. Like a free ride, no promises.
Adopting their past cycles and blades as my own.
Survive the known pain of being left every single time. Would there
be a day it will not get robbed? Not mishandled, misused, and missed to be yearned?
Saurabh Anand (he/him) is an assistant writing center director and Rhetoric and Composition Studies doctoral student in the Department of English at the University of Georgia. His work has/will appear in the Writing Center Journal, the Journal of Writing Analytics, and the College Composition and Communication Journal. Community Literacy Journal, English Journal, Washington Square Review, and Journal of International Students have published his creative work on minority language learning, teaching, and communal experiences. In 2023, the International Writing Center Association honored him with the Future Leader Award. His writings aim to expose his vulnerabilities, practices, and enactment of his racial, sexual, linguistic, and ethnic identities that disrupt and challenge heteronormative pedagogies in Writing Studies aimed toward queering normative ways of understanding negotiations of identities in tutoring practices and research.