“Red Gates” – Nayana Nair

I drowned the flowers
one by one.
The poison of beauty
now runs through the rivers
on this land,
they fill his backyard
in every season of rain.
A child with his smile
drowns another boat of dreams,
the flood is a field of paper,
the flood is all that is left of me.
She stares into me,
waiting for a reflection to surface.
She walks into me
to see where I end.

She tells me about the boy
she can’t love and the boy
she can’t blame
as I dissolve and submerge
the red gates of her house,
the garden of forgiveness,
her school shoes, all roads to her friend
who doesn’t smile back anymore,
the spoons that remind her of hunger
for farthest worlds and people.

She asks me how deep will be this pain
of losing herself, how long she would have to smile
through this hate.
I flow into her heart,
wondering, if there
I could turn back to the flower I was,
if the end of my hate could be
the end of her pain.
If I could be her answer of hope.

“Familiar” – Nayana Nair

“You have changed”, I want to say.
But the more you change, the more familiar you get.

Now you look like the girl who lied she is my friend.
You look like the boy who crawled into my skin
only to confirm that I can feel the hurt just as he can.
You look like my hand that loves to strangle my heart.
You look like the sad unwelcoming roads to my breaking home.
You look like the one who desperately want to be remembered for leaving me in parts.

I want to say that I loved someone else
that couldn’t possibly be you.

But you are a person of this world,
you are the same as everyone else.
You sit here with me
hoping that you weren’t mine,
hoping that I would look familiar to you
if you looked long enough.

“Unsettling” – Nayana Nair

One day I was watching TV
or I thought I was
until it seemed that
the boy whose silence alone was unsettling to many,
the loud girl who dreams of becoming the nightmare she suffers,
even the clueless proud parent who try hard to be cool
were all angry, everyone was shouting
not at each other but at me,
for missing my cue to act,
for leaving it to others to sort my life.
I hate these times
when even entertainment
has to be so painfully self-reflective.
Or maybe it always was.

“Blue” – Nayana Nair

You once sat on my shore.
You fell in love with the water
in which ships, treasures and lives were lost.
The same ocean is taking you in today.
You told me, the drops of sea reamining on your hands
yearn to touch my eyes again.
If so,
why wasn’t I taken away?
Why am I on the other side of glass
of this body that won’t sink.
Why does it have to be me?
Me, who so loved the boy who played at my shore.
Why did you come this far
only to die by my hands?
Why did you seek the one you cannot have?
Why couldn’t you stay on land
and look at me
and believe the lie of calmness?
Believe that I am most beautiful blue ever.

“Freckles” – Nayana Nair

There was once a boy
who looked at my freckles
and told me that they were
autumn leaves in winter skies.
That I am a sunset to cherish
and a storm to pet.
Who looked at my words
and told me, that
he could find all the things
he has lost in his life
in my words.
He told me
the day he loses me
he will lose much more than that.

“A LONG WALK”-Nayana Nair

The boy walked slowly

In step with her heartbeat.

Tears the sky cried last night

Flowed at his feet.

Through the cracked pebbled path

That shimmered like her tresses.

He didn’t glance back

For he felt her eyes on him everywhere.

He knew

Not her name, not her abode,

But that she was in his life forever.

In the form of passing shadows

And in the form of sunlit windows.

He need not hold onto her,

Nor follow her,

Nor please or disappoint her.

He need not name this feeling,

Or cling to it, for he knew

She had become the meaning of his life.

He heard her singing

Beneath the lamp post they stood.

The sparks of laughter

That spilled from her eyes

Lighted his dull spirit.

The streets that he walked now,

The blue street with washed out black,

Where she walked with him

Will never be the same.

These streets will be the

Address of his happiness

And her image will stand there

Welcoming him home.

It was a long walk

For the boy with the lighted spirit

To drag his earthly body

Away from her presence,

Away from life.