“The way complete beings find breaking” – Nayana Nair

.

You look at me
and I look at you
the way broken things look at the hands of an angry god,
the way complete beings look down
at things that can never be their equal.

You and me, we take turns,
learning to feel pain, to give pain
reaching for the light in each other’s eyes,
making copies of each other’s memories
and spilling the ink on the originals.

You and me –
we are children left alone unsupervised with this steel instrument of love.
We now know of the blood and bone within our skin, thanks to this blade.
We now know how to keep distance when nothing keeps us apart.

When we lose our color, our teeth of milk and cruelty,
when the blade loses its shine
and looks like any other rust of this world,
only then we know the pain
of having walked past a life we could have had,
the journeys we could have walked,
the meaning we carried in ourselves for each other sake,
the meaning we never looked up, never cared for.

“Cheap Literature” – Nayana Nair

Don’t ask which part of me
are easier to love.

I have tried so hard
to become someone who cannot be be loved
without effort or tears.

My faith in love,
my faith in those who love
or it’s absence
is not so difficult to explain.

Clue: Every pop song that leaves you in shambles.
Clue: The books that you call cheap literature.
Clue: The lovers who want to get to the happy ending fast, so they can think about and focus on more important stuff.
Clue: The sappy feelings that you are not interested in.

Those who first talk of my skin and my volume when they talk of love.
(I mean you.)
Those who think that my view of the world, and how the world views me
is just a phase that won’t hopefully be their burden for life.
(I mean you.)
Those who tell me about my selfishness, my unreasonable fears, my unstable suspicious tiring mind over lunch as they run their blade over every bit of exposed skin of mine. Those who are satisfied when I don’t even wince as I bleed, just the way I have been trained.
(I mean you.)
You have made this whole process
more difficult than it should be.

Don’t ask me the easy way.
I might just begin to hate you for that question.

“Fossil” – Nayana Nair

Drop by drop the wax fills
the bucket of broken butterflies.

I am falling into another sleep,
into another death that is warm,
that embraces me like no lover ever has.

I feel the pain in my wings, and unlike other days
I try to think that this will never pass.
That I will remain like this, with a bit of pain always there
in my shoulder blades, under my ribs, aching for a memory that floats
above my body, above my existence.

Someone holds my hand and I let them.
I was always afraid of living and dying alone.
I guess there are many like me.

Years from now they will find us
and probably write stories
about how we loved each other even in death.
As they look at our almost ruined and almost saved faces
they won’t know how we died heartbroken,
how we held onto each other
but never dared to look at each other
or ask the names we had started to hate.
How our skins melted into each other only because
we had nowhere else to be.
That even as light broke free from our eyes
we didn’t want to look like failure.

“Eroding Structures” – Nayana Nair

I checked my diaries
for the hints of regrets,
for the eroding structures of demands
I once made from life.
I checked my skin for the trace of scars-
the remains of the unreasonable
yet necessary decisions.
The sharp bleeding memory
of the blade,
of the hatred I inflicted on myself.
I checked the outline of my mother’s lips
do they finally approve of what I am.
While I eat all three meals
that were supposed to keep me full,
I wait for the forgiveness that never comes.
The pardon
that my heart
(half eaten by my self loathing)
can never grant.

“CARPET” -Nayana Nair

On the 8’x10′ beige carpet that you chose

We lie together, spooning.

Of all the possibilities I had for myself

Never was this a part.

Never had I thought of a caressing hand

Holding me together.

Of eyes filled with passion

Transfixed on me.

Of another skin , this close to mine.

And slowly your grips tightens.

You hold me down.

Hold me captive in a heart so dear to me.

And I see all my dreams in front of me.

Are you making them come true?

Or are they leaking out of me?

Through the cracks made by strikes

Of your once loving hands.

Is their fading away their

Last goodbye to me?

But it’s a loss I can live with.

Tell me your dreams,

To fill the spaces that mine occupied.

Or tell me of a way to get mine back

Without having to leave you.

Tell me of love, your love.

Let my heart be consoled by that.

Tell me of how I once was,

Before you. I can’t remember,

Do you?

Kiss me, remind me

Why we are here?

Can you lessen my pain?

Can you free me?

You smile.

Of course, you can.

So I close my eyes and wait.

Wait patiently for my release.

I wait till I feel

The blade on my neck

And your breath on my back.

So this is love, isn’t it?

A slow death.

A silent wait.

Dripping blood

And a red carpet.