“Shifting places” – Nayana Nair

.

Somewhere far away, in the early hours
a window cracks by the shrieks of a woman.

Let’s wait, let it end, it will be nothing,
it will end up like all the other things made up in my mind.

It will end, it will end –
I chant under my breath.

But it doesn’t end.
Wave after wave, it rushes towards me, to the doors of reality.

And in response something in me cries back, something in me knocks back hard.
Now all I can think is – “I must run. If I run I can reach there.

If I run fast enough there will be little blood lost,
a little mind saved. If I run, I can make it in time before the worse begins.”

But the roads keep disappearing, the houses shift places, everyone laughs a little louder
as I move forward only to be yanked back and pulled down.

There is someone far away waiting for my help
and her flesh is just as weak as mine. Her throat must be sore, her heart must ache.

I wait and cry for an eternity
before I hear everyone walk away. Before I hear hope approaching.

Hope sounds like
wheels of a bicycle and the broken whistle of a kid.

It sounds like “are you alright? aren’t you cold?”
It looks with puzzled eyes at my clothes that are somewhat not right.

It tells me universal facts like
“if you lie there either cold will kill you or a oncoming truck”

Hope tells me I am not dead yet.
I hope she is alive as well.

“Dripping Doubts” – Nayana Nair

This loud and constant dripping of doubts
is this all I need to mute, to mask,
the voices of people who have known me too less,
who have loved me more than they needed to.

. . .

I am filled with fear, tempted to run away
when they make sacrifices for my happiness,
to stay by my side.
I know what I feel should be love,
but all I feel is burden-
a knife
that pierces my skin and feelings
testing how thick is my concern,
seeing how far it can go
before it finds the cold bone hidden in me.
I bleed to little
and give up too soon.
It all ends before it even begins.
This all was a bad idea to begin with.