“The last song at karaoke” – Nayana Nair

…

In the pool of lights,
the green and yellow glitter swam in the air
and you said – “This is what our life would be like.
This is what our happiness would look like.
This is the forever, this is the everyday love
that I can offer you my love, in return for your heart.
This grace is ours to keep,
if you choose to revolve around me,
just as I have chosen to see only you.”

As you held my hand and waited
I realized all I needed was
a word of affection,
a promise of love, of any love I was capable of.
That was all I needed to make you mine.
But the easy lies, the half-meant overused words
were nowhere to be found in me.
I wanted only you and yet I couldn’t utter a ‘yes’.
Of all the things I could do, I stupidly chose to cry.
I knew my place in this world too well
to admit wanting anything as lovely as you.

As you smiled and wiped my tears
and picked the another happy song, I wished you would have
said “If you cannot love me, better get ready for a lifetime of hating yourself”
instead of saying “It is fine.”

“Deer” – Nayana Nair

In our reflection in the disappearing stream
you look like the golden deer
that I am not supposed to want.
The water angels,
one of which we might end up
eating for dinner tonight,
swims into my face, distorting the light in my eyes,
splitting my lips, my cheeks, my smile into two,
into four, into hundred, into thousand pieces of light.
Till I am forced to admit
that I must stop here.
So I leave, making my last excuse.
I walk away trying to forget
the monstrous face I wear
when I am at the verge of breaking the world for my wants.

“replacing your name with bruises” – Nayana Nair

My love for you is nothing special.
We are not the only ones
whose life is turned upside down
by the sheer force of our heart.
But would we have known
what our hearts are capable of
if we didn’t see it for ourselves.
If we didn’t fail, would we have known,
that the ending we took for granted
was not the default setting for this game.
“I am your nothing and you my nothing”
Is it too late to admit this (to lie)?
Walking towards you, into your arms
I want to forget this feeling, can I?

“Smile and Call it Love” – Nayana Nair

From the day that I resolved
to create a door in my life
for you to move out me,
to forget you,
to even hate you, if it becomes necessary.
I thought resolve was all I needed
to get rid of the poison that you had become,
to create space for myself to grow into,
if I had to grow without love or understanding anyway.

I sorted myself and my memories
keeping only the ones that would help me
convince myself that you were bad for me,
that your love could blossom only
in the season of your selfishness,
the season where I was expected to wilt for your sake
and smile when you called it love.

I tried to remember
everything that I read in your mannerisms everyday,
everything I had overlooked as visions caused by my paranoia,
everything that came true,
everything that would have been true, only if I had let you.

I know,
I know that you were not evil,
but only human.
I know that I may have made you bleed
more that I can admit.
But I am also only a human.
Maybe I could have accepted your human nature
if my weakness, my complexes, my cruel words
could have been understood by you as well.

At some point
there was nothing you could do for me
than to remind me of my monstrosity everyday,
than to wait for me to breakdown.
At some point
there was nothing that I could do
than to walk away
and try to hate you.

“Cycles of Waiting”- Nayana Nair

Your hand that touch me
only when I am asleep.
Your memories that only surface
when I have been flooded beyond the hope of any saving.
The cycles of waiting-
a wait for the numbness,
a wait for the feelings that have left,
a wait that I cannot admit is for you.
But this wait doesn’t make you or me
better than what we were and will always be.
So I tell myself everyday
to stop waiting for the past that I once ran from
even when that is the only thing
that I cannot seem to do.

“Another Failure” – Nayana Nair

If only yearning
was the correct word
for what I feel for you now.

There is a voice in me
that has taken over my throat
and it speaks what I never wanted to say.

It admits all weakness that you never knew I had.
What is the use of confessing
what no one even suspected?

I ask myself that
even as I continue to speak,
even if you are not here to listen.

Maybe your absence
has given me the courage
to do the right thing.

Now that you are gone,
now that you have changed
I have no reason to hide where I hid.

There is no love keeping me away from
the life that I always wanted,
that I could always have.

But the reason
of this freedom
also leaves me paralyzed.

Though there are many failures in my life
that I made you reason for,
now when I can do better without you, I see myself giving up.

How unfair it is to you, if I give up now.
How unfair it is to me, if I cant even taste the only fruits
whose sweetness you have not taken away.

Love was not that hard
and I do not want to add another line
to the poems and essays who blame love for everything.

That would be another lie, another failure for me,
if even when I am losing I seek someone
who is ready to sink with me.

“Surrounded by Chatter” – Nayana Nair

With marker I scribble on the mirror
the list of complains I have from you,
not caring if they mess up my own reflection.
Sometimes thankful that under that I can hide my own
obsession with what people will think of me,
how much will they value based on the value you give me.
An obsession I cannot really admit I have.
After all I am supposed to just ask for what I want
and not what everyone tells me I should want and I should have.
But are my wants really immune from the template of dreams
that world sets apart for people like us.

When I sit surrounded by chatter
I remember how I had to seal my lips,
had to come up with stories more acceptable than
the vague transitions of my life and my heart
from one state to another.
Even if I put on songs of love and think of you
I am just presented with all that I am waiting to receive from you.
(Does that make me greedy or calculating?)
But somehow I always bring myself around to the life I must live
that would be easy to live
if I didn’t compare myself to others,
if it was easy to turn your back to the the judging eyes
especially the one being judged is not only you
but also the object of your affection.

“Flaw of my Heart” – Nayana Nair

Though I hate to admit it,
I have known more happiness
than I should.
And the days of sorrow that I talk about
were not as bad as I write.
The flaw of my heart
was always being too expectant,
of overestimating my worth in the schemes of life.
Believing that the tales I read
were written for me.
But knowing all this
there is only way to live my life
that I know of.
I guess sometimes
it is easier to relive the nightmares,
to live in the smaller eternities of pain,
than to wander in this fog
not knowing what to look for.