“the constant part of love” – Nayana Nair

i remember your hands and their warmth
like i remember
the versions of me
that were easier to live with (or so i think).
the colors, their unnatural brightness,
the scent of acetone always lingering
on the tips of your fingertips,
always hiding a sad rainbow (just my type).
always a star that you forgot to rub and break,
shined on your skin.
under my lips, they shined brighter than my world.
i swam to them as they stood in a world of darkness
in the shapes of you and me.
it is so odd
that in my constantly breaking and building and growing
brain and its images and meaning-
everything about you meant love.
i loved your flower hairpins and fake bullets
and the magazines of the the people you would rather be
and the window you glanced out of when didn’t want to look at me
and your back against mine.
it is odd
that i could love you so
even when i didn’t know why?

“A Big Word” – Nayana Nair

I am happy. Almost.
I leave my bed to sit beside the window
that looks over the road.
I stare at everything that lives and dies beside me.
I will my brain to think of a rhyme
that I can gift this world.
I feel that my love for this ocean
of people far exceeds my loathing.
I am almost happy to be alive.
Though almost is a big word, a painful word.
It is is still smaller than the distance I have covered so far,
it is negligible to everything that has ever stood in my way.
‘Almost’ is something I can overlook,
as long as I have something to look forward to.
I cannot give up on this world even when I should.

“to the one who loved everything true” – Nayana Nair

the truth is
i have loved you
more than what my heart could take.

for years
the only moment
i loved myself, felt proud of myself
were the ones where i put my better judgement in the drain,
were the ones where i clinged onto you even as you made me cry,
were the ones where i suffocated and killed my brain with only your thoughts.

so as you put an end to all that we were
and as i learn to hate you with honesty,
somewhere in me, i know that this end
is what i desperately needed.
this was the peace
that i would have never granted myself.
thank you.

“Short lived season of comfort” – Nayana Nair

Any seat that I was comfortable occupying
was always unbearably cold.
People were right when they said
that something was not right with me.
For my flesh wanted to become fresh snow,
my bones the lone tree
under which sat my soul-
a child learning to count
the years of cold and whiteness,
an innocent, forgetful, and aging brain
living in a world
with no song, no spring, no rain,
to remind of all that is lost.

“On My Own” – Nayana Nair

Once the shade of the shutters
are rolled down,
once I am left on my own,
reason and explanation rush in,
try to cling and climb up
the cracks of my heart,
and the folds of my brain,
trying desperately to stop me
to reach out, to find me
in the fog of fear.

But I am already far ahead,
my hands reach for everything it could hold,
everything it could break
and hurl them at the window
till it broke,
till I could cry
for the things that were robbed from me.
I couldn’t stop.
I couldn’t stop hurting myself
even when I lay half-broken under dangling paper curtains,
even when all that I broke pierced my skin and hurt me back.
If I stopped, I would again hear the steps
that always walks over my world and reduces me to dust.

“about” – Nayana Nair

about…
the breaking reflections in my running blood stream
the low lying and slow dying branches of my thoughts
the disappearing light and
the terrifying and liberating heartbeat
about…
words, your words
that i breathe in my lungs
to try and hear and fail to see what you feel, what you mean
since my ears are of no use
as they are still filled with the cries
that my brain has not been able to process till date
about…
about…
that’s what i want to talk about
and that’s what i want to hide

“Less Than Half” – Nayana Nair

The moment I pass any door
a part of my brain whispers-
too many people,
watch you step and watch your tongue,
lest you want to be branded as one of those women
that you are are and aren’t at the same time.
For if you are not careful enough
you will soon believe everything that people say about you
as you are doing right now.
Right now only half of you exist in this body.
I know this because that is what I was calculating
in the class of areas and volumes,
as teacher taught how we determine
the volume the water left at in a cylinder of flesh
once it starts leaking from all the words that have pierced it.
Or that’s what I heard at least.
I got had good score for that class
and I got called many more names.
A little more of me seeped out
and now I am less than half of what I was.
I know this because I have lost my friends
(maybe they see I am no longer me).
I know this because my heart no longer protests
when I hear people calling me by wrong names.

“Does it make sense” – Nayana Nair

I have waited and dreaded this moment
where all my memories come rushing back in
and all my sins outweigh the suffering I had
and nothing I could tell myself
will absolve me from my crimes.
I can look back and say
“I was immature and I didn’t know enough.”
But is that enough?
But is that a valid reason?
Can any reason
validate the pain that continues to grow
in the chest of other
while my own brain is busy burying facts
that puts me in a bad light?
How can I talk like this
as if I am the one suffering?
But if I look back one more time
I am afraid I can never move forward.
Does it make sense that still I think of myself?
What kind of repentance is this?
Does it make sense for me to cry?

“Scavenge” – Nayana Nair

As you scavenge you brain
for some pleasant memories
that would suit
the cold air
fogged up with impending tears.
All you can think of are
the visions
that can scorch the skin of the ‘new you’
until you are nothing but what you were.
And the only thing you can remember
is the one raindrop
that lost itself,
evaporated into the sound
that almost made you cry.