“The snow continues to pile as our breath struggles to remember life” – Nayana Nair

.

The walls gave birth to new ghosts
and the chill in our lungs
grew as a garden of hyacinth.
Whatever remained of our suns
was now dying with us.
“Give in to the end with grace”
said a detached cold voice on screen.

So in my remaining breaths
I tried to write something wise about life
but somehow it all came back
to those few names
repeated again and again,
it somehow came back to not wanting to die.

I looked at her across the room
as she ran her fingers through the spread of cards
with a smile that still brushed against my heart
like a butterfly with one wing of metal
and other made of light.
It doesn’t make sense that this all has to end.

Someone out there in the snow
continued to sing about heartbreaks
and the glory of this release
and yet what wouldn’t I give
only to feel another despair of love
if that is how she could live a little more in me.

“What a hopeless sadness have I ended up facing in her love for truth”- Nayana Nair

.

How false this all is.
Let’s imagine something truer.
Something true like returning to the pain.
I imagined another world devoid of distant fires.
A room filled with moonlight and sorrow.
Here I heard myself speak of the pain
that I cannot forget, that I cannot stop to seek.
I heard myself stupidly ramble about
the cold settled in my stomach, the snow
that had no winter to name as its mother,
how I tried to seek another face
that could make looking at my own bearable,
how I broke everything but me
because that was the only way to really hurt myself.
I heard her cry.
I asked her again and again
how much more truer should my pain be
for her love to become real,
for my love to count.
But I only heard her cry.