“Eventual Fall” – Nayana Nair

She just laughed and said
“you are not really intelligent,
you know that right?”
as she packed her bag,
making space for her only notebook, with difficulty.
I wonder if she really needs all those the things.
She is not a careful person,
I know that because her list of priorities is horizontal-
everything is important, everything is equally dispensable.
I hear a song breaking at the bottom of her lungs,
when she talks of the new thing that she will love forever
when I know she won’t.

She lets me know for my own good “geniuses are not made by effort,
love doesn’t happen by hard work,
quit swimming and struggling when you are on land.”
She takes me by hand, teaching me how to walk,
teaching me her pace.
Her pace unsettles me. She gives cruel names
to my innocent actions as she smiles.
She smiles at me while I wait for my forever to end.
And only because I hate myself
for not wanting to love her sometimes
I smile back.

I wonder how far my determination can take us.
As she finally boards the train home, after missing out on a few,
she says “stop struggling, when i am with you,
i know your heart, even when you don’t.
it hurts to see you like this,
things will eventually fall in their place.”
I wonder if she is pushing herself, within the limits of who she is,
to save something of us, to save something of me.
I wonder how she can love me, if she knows how petty my heart is.
And because I do not know the answers to her,
I wait for us to fall into the places.
I think of her and find it easier, this wait.

“Born Like This” – Nayana Nair

“i was born like this”, I lie,
when I really want to say

“the normal ones, the sane ones
are surprisingly excellent at
breaking anyone without any guilt whatsoever.

i no longer have strength
to leave them, or beg them,
or handle the repercussion of wanting them.

i fear them only when i cry
though i am not exactly sure why it should be so.

the positivity, the kindness, the unity, the charity, the world peace
that they talk about
looks so beautiful when put in action
for example,
there are holes in me though i have never seen a bullet in my life
and i am not allowed to say it is their doing
“it is a result of my negative thinking and bad karma” i parrot
like i have been taught to.

this burnt skin, this distrustful heart,
the layers of clothes that are prerequisite of proving my modesty
if god-forbid i let loose an animal in someone just because i exist,
the logs of missed calls and blocked calls and blocked memories
that are the only things protecting me now.
this is how i was born.“

Though absurd, it sounds like truth the more I say it.
This is how I hurt whatever is left of my heart.

“The More I Hear” – Nayana Nair

The songs buzz in my head.
It’s only your voice in that song this time
that stops me from moving away.
This noise again
that feels like love.
For I have already been acquainted with it
in another sweet disaster,
when someone told me
I was worth more than what I think of.
And many have said the same to me
when their actions told me otherwise.
And the more I hear it
the more cheaper these words become.
I can probably buy them from the same shop
that sold me self-hatred,
that sold me shame.
If I earned enough good points in your eyes
maybe then I can finally afford everything
that others have and I don’t.
Then maybe I will no longer have to live my life
ignoring the contempt in everyone’s eyes
that silently tells me that
it is my fault to be someone they do not like.

“New Limitations” – Nayana Nair

I tended to all the brokenness
that now remained on your skin
after they found you at places
where they didn’t want you to be.
I hoped it was only your skin
that was red and sore.
The more silent you sat,
the more my heart worried.
As you tired to smile for me
I felt that maybe I was also a strain on you,
even me sitting here was more than what you could handle.
I felt that even if I sat here all night beside you
I would only be an obstacle in your way
to reconciling with your new limitations,
to return to what you were.

Is it selfish of me to come to you,
look after you
only for the sake of having you as I liked you?
So that I don’t have to wonder how to walk around you
as if you were most fragile broken glass
that I didn’t want to be around,
that if I fix you somehow
things would get better.
Then we would only have to think about
where to go for brunch, what to buy, what to watch
rather than sitting here
and second-guessing our words and action.
Rather than feeling helpless and inadequate
in handling this pain
that would be easier to forget if it was not in the face
of the one we love.

“Potential” – Nayana Nair

My every action feels like a potential trigger
for my all-seeing god and his all-criticizing followers
to throw me into the hell that is still under construction.
They are always changing the furniture,
always tearing down new wallpapers,
to suit to life I fear most.
But I can never make up my mind.
Maybe knowing, that the only way to evade their sentence
is to live my own hell.

Day 3- Quote Challenge

“You’ve become an accomplice in your own annihilation and there is nothing you can do about it. Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. And finally there is only one door left.”
― Cormac McCarthy

Now I am not sure what this quote exactly makes me feel. But every time I read this, I see in front of me that one door left. It fills me up with a kind of relief and fear at the same time. It is as if every small action of mine will change my life in a drastic ways. It is like choosing a destiny that I cannot see. Irreversible nature of my decision, the narrowing of the world to fewer door, fewer dreams, fewer options is frightening. But it also fills me with a sense of responsibility and control. It feels like a power that I do not know how to put to use, but it is still a power. Like a blind person walking on a minefield, where even having eyes may not be of much help considering the chaos that surrounds me. Even if a portion of choice is in my hand, I do have a say, but not much. I cannot turn back and look at all the doors I can’t go back through. I am just left with that one line I am travelling (many that I can’t), the line my decisions create to that last door, the line we call fate.

“Endless Screech” – Nayana Nair

It has been long since
I saw your face for what it was.
Now the ends of your lips droops
and your words stings and
your action have become
the endless screech of a madman.
I didn’t want to spare my words
to remind you of your change.
I didn’t want to forgive you for the nights
there was nothing but your shout and your anger
bouncing around in my head
and in this house.
I want you to know how badly
you have ruined yourself.
But you are not there in that body
and I am playing pretend of a family
with the whatever has been left behind.

“River” – Nayana Nair

Rivers of people
crowded the alleys of my mind.
Every thought of mine
had to go through them.
And they were relentless.
By the time it made through them,
it was not the same.
That beautiful new born thought
had turned into a old stranger.
I learned one thing
that I can never have a thought
or an action
that is truly my own.
And even when the building and the skies
of my mind decay,
the people in those alleys will live on.