“your desire would burn away” – Nayana Nair

i read this on a torn sheet of paper
that was lying, waiting (possibly for me?)
in that empty hall, that on a normal day has never known empty.
and being who i am, this again had to be an easy answer from a higher power.
being who i was i believed that the confusion in my mind
rocked every throne in heaven.
so again i assumed as i said i never would,
that these must be the words that could solve me.
never mind the context, never mind the book or it’s title.
there is so much missing and this paper still remains
it might mean something,
it must mean something,
everything had to mean something for me to somehow go on.
it said “your desire would burn away,
the moment you let it have your words”
so i uttered your name with the place you have in my heart.
i mustered up enough courage to speak of the place i wanted in you.
it sounded dubious and shallow.
it sounded so much like me
that i thanked myself for not saying it to you.
i made a clean tear through that piece of paper
for being too right and being too wrong
and walked away wanting now to become a better vessel,
the person on whose lips these words would really sound the way they felt
i walked away waiting for my mind and your heart
to become good enough for those feelings.

nothing burns away.

“incoherent” – Nayana Nair

i looked best dressed in incoherent words.
everyone assumed that i am drunk on something.
everyone assumed me to be an artist for that.

any word that left my mouth
was just another way to pronounce self-doubt.
the only way to stay and run away at the same time.

the way i speak,
“you are beautiful” and “i hate you”
sounds the same.
the way i speak
“i want to die” sounds same as “i love you”.
my name sounds same as any other name.

what is the use of having this name
that no one calls.
so i sign the heart of my temporary admirer
with “tear”, “snow”, “goodbye”, “sleep”….
with other sad beautiful words
that cause less hurt than my name.

“Half” – Nayana Nair

I always assumed
that people are working for what they want
and I shouldn’t feel hurt from what they do
when I was the one that got in their way.
But often, like me, they are just working for something
to know if they want it or not.
And when they don’t,
they move from this part of world to another.
Leaving behind
half done work,
with things that will never be complete
that fills the land with a loneliness .
Leaving people who speak of all possible things
that might be wrong with them
when asked “Who did this to you?”.
If you have a love that leaks, words that do not make sense
a story that never went beyond description of half formed characters-
probably you have found a home in my dream
and I am sorry for what you have to put up with
only because I didn’t knew what I wanted.

“Assumption” – Nayana Nair

We assumed that this fire that melts and hurts
was safe in our hearts
and no one would have to know,
no one has to get burned, bear marks of
this uncertain change that leaves us strangers
to the ones we love.
That makes it difficult to act
like what we used to be,
when we are forgetting memories
we are supposed to enact.