“Minimum Limit of Thirty” – Nayana Nair

.

And when we had run out of pleasant things to talk about
I asked him things he didn’t ask me,
things he didn’t want to be asked.
But I was bored of the all this peace,
all the ants that crawled into him, into me
maintaining separate lines,
to reach the places in us
we both didn’t want the other to see.
I guess I wanted him to be different,
I had more than enough people
who wanted to love me without knowing me.
I guess I wanted to be difficult.
For once I didn’t want to be the easy conversation,
the easy way out of pain.

I asked him
when the waves of life try to reach his foot,
what does he do?
Who does he think of?
Whom does he drown in his mind
every time, every moment
to avoid knowing what he really feels?
Does he almost hold that hand,
does he almost save the one who will kill him first,
who has always killed him
without hesitating?

He seems to be the type who would do stupid tings
on repeat at least thirty times
before giving up on the one
whose love didn’t surface
even after the thirty wounds, or bloody hands,
or hundred considerations.
He looks so breakable and so happy
I wonder if in the hollows of his heart
where his anger and disappointments hides,
are there flower beds of daisies,
and a heart that can never be broken?

Is this how I look-
like him, plagued and haunted by beautiful dead thing?
Is that why he smiles at me without saying a word?
Is that why I can’t smile back?

“ANTS”- Nayana Nair

As you all walked

To your homes, to your love

To where the crowd takes you.

With love and hatred

And worries in your minds.

With life still in your veins.

I sat there, up above,

Looking down at you,

Oblivious of me, of him.

Of the knots that tightened

Around his neck each second.

While he saw everyone, even himself

Wrenching away from his grasp

The only life he would ever have.

I looked at him beside me

And looked at you down below.

And wondered whether anyone of you

Will remember his face,

Will know his life.

Maybe your hostile glance

Was the last nail that

Broke open his heart.

Someone like you planted that seed

Of self-hatred in him long ago.

I looked at his cuts and bruises

And thoughts of the nights he wrestled

With his thoughts and deeds

He wouldn’t confide nor confess.

As if he was the ant that was

Crushed beneath your boots.

And I wonder, how many other

Were still getting crushed.

Sitting there on that rooftop

With my friend

With stars above my head

And humanity below.

I saw him fall

Fall down in to the darkness.

And I cried as I lost my friend.

And he cried as he lost himself.