“Line of Sight” – Nayana Nair

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All the windows in this world
are aligned in one line tonight.
One line of sight is enough to hold
all the meaning and everything there was left to see.

All the places I could have gone to,
all the places that I own just by my passing through
they are but one.
The world is just one person,
whose hands are laced through mine.

The world that was so difficult to approach
had found me finally.
Finally I have spoken the words of love
to the one whom I feared I will never reach.
How simple is this happiness
of walking forward, walking towards this smile.
How simple and beautiful is this feeling
now that I have found it.

How sad are the hours that follow,
the hours that push the world out of my view again.
Yet how comforting is this love
that doesn’t leave my side
even when we have run out of the easiest moments.

“Like no other” – Nayana Nair

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The food tastes better today.
The light today falls just right into me.
“This would be a day like no other”, I thought
as someone wished me a happy day on radio
before playing a song that shredded my remaining patience
into bright bitter words that fit me better.
And now armed with an unreasonable and off-putting frown
I walk towards the house where my love lived.
I knew on a day like this
she would still be somewhere far away from every world of mine
and my knocks would bounce back
from everything of hers she didn’t want.
I stood there talking to my friends
who differ from me only in the fact
that they don’t have to walk this world in hope and fear of change.
I pick another flower which will definitely end with
“she remembers me, not“
“she will return, not“
“she is here, not“
As my shoulders melts to fit
the memory of her outline,
the song changes to something that refuses to end with
“i will forget her eventually“
“i will be fine like everybody else“
“i will find what it means to be me, by myself“
and something about that was relieving.
The false belief that I will be stuck in time
even if it was with a memory of her, with false hopes
sounded better than hearing the approaching steps
of the day that will cure me of her.

“All the Ends that pass me by” – Nayana Nair

The shoes I am wearing
are wearing thin.
I feel my clothes trying,
trying hard to slip out of me
and I don’t try to hold onto them.
That is how I have always been.

I see an appproaching death,
the sihouette of another ending
that I won’t be able to take
and I order another drink,
I put down the book
that was getting a bit more real
that I expected it to be,
and I wait with open eyes
to witness the truth of every undoing
that is in my fate.

This is me-
the one who cries absurdly
at a broken sole, at my frayed edges,
at a day-long, a month-long, an year-short love,
the one who tries to mean “till the end”.

The one who can only smile
when called cruel and cold-
that is also me.

“you know where you have hidden your light” – Nayana Nair

have you come to find the life, the hand
that lit every eye that you have come across?

you can sit here and look at me for your whole life
but you won’t forget the one whom you cannot face.

she had a sweeter heart than mine, i can guess.
every lover in their best moment were as lovely as this mother earth.

i won’t compete, i won’t love you better.
tell me the parts of you that she lit, i will let them burn you away.

i won’t talk like her, i won’t tell you i understand.
so hold my hand and miss her as much as you can.

in my lacking, see her face.
take the name you have been dreading to approach.

confess your love to the one you have lost.
make peace with the part of you that won’t let her memory rest.

divinity only takes away things that you treasure.
so, remembering is the only easy way to forget.

“Rainbows and Reflection” – Nayana Nair

I always thought
that I could be happy,
really happy,
forever happy,
if only I could make myself love happiness.

Though I approached this strange kid,
though I pretended to be good
and as holy as humans can be,
I had nothing to say this ever smiling child.
All the standard stories
I had prepared for this heavy chore
of presenting myself to this world,
were not for her ears.

I could never make myself fill her head with such darkness.
Why should she know of the categories of suffering and where I fit,
about the worth that every person has to earn.
This kid looked at rainbow and reflections with marvel,
prayed before every meal, believed in every story told.
There was nothing I could say to her.
I could not make her see me, befriend me, understand me
without changing her into me.

Only my love for this happiness
stands in my way
of the heaven I have dreamt in futile.

“Scarier Element” – Nayana Nair

Someone told me that is how love works out for people like us
who approach love as if it is an animal that can kill us at any time
and who only move towards it
when they become aware of the other monsters that are eating up
all that they could rely on.
We only find the strength to move to a riskier spot
when chased by a scarier element.
We move only when our hope turns into our source of fear.
That is how we find all the things that we keep in our heart
and that is how we lose everything we call ours.

“Putting Up Fences” – Nayana Nair

Today, you are more beautiful that I remember you to be.
Today, I feel we are almost invincible.
It is funny to say out loud this word “invincible”,
when life proves again and again
how it is just another consolation to our mind,
a fence to fend off the reality.
So that we might know of happiness
without being burdened by the dark screen of the approaching end.
But today I am ready to put up these fences that I do not believe in,
if it could me help me create a better memory of what life was.
Maybe I can learn to be blind in a different way,
that what I have been till now.
I hope
for this day
you see in me the the love that you always looked for.
I hope you remember me this way
even when this brightness, this happiness
and these fences fade away from the landscape of our lives.

“Coffee Shop” – Nayana Nair

I am sipping my 27th cup of coffee
waiting for the shop to get crowded,
so people will not eye me with suspicion or pity.
So I can be in company of people
who have nowhere to go, like me.
For whom, home is just a place you run away from.
I wait for the sun to set.
I wait for the sounds of your approaching footsteps.

I see you make your way
to the table behind me.
I don’t have to look, to know it’s you.
I know you much more than I should.
We have lived together for too long.
And you wouldn’t know me
even if you saw my face.
You have only known yourself,
your world knows nothing but you.

And slowly the seats around you
are filled one by one.
And empty chairs
are being drawn and dragged around you.
And with these strangers
I hear my stories from
your mouth that seem like
the only warmth in their life.
I hear every word you say,
I hear it everyday
waiting at this shop.
To hear, if you ever came to miss me.
Ever said my name with a melancholy
of losing something precious.
If in the stories you tell,
if you could still see me.
If for a moment I could hear you utter word “love”
with my name in its periphery.

I do not love you.
I’m not here to claim you back.
Not here to prove my eternal undying love.
I am just waiting in this cold
to know
that when I sold you my life,
when you used up my story
what you did with me?
Am I there in that heart?
Or at the bottom of some frozen lake?
I need to start looking for it.
And I don’t know where to start.