“Putting myself to sleep” – Nayana Nair

Every night
as you sleep,
I fold myself up
into someone I used to be.
I try to fit into the space beside you
where no longer fit.

But your warmth
now only brings me tears.
I wish it didn’t.
Even though I stopped wanting you,
I don’t think I stopped loving you.
I wish I didn’t.
I know I will give you up someday
but till then
I wanted to gift you few more days-
few more days of ignorance.
You will probably sleep through them
not knowing how much I must have loved you
to stay beside, you even when you were not watching,
withstanding my pain as long as possible.

The night grows deeper,
your sleep lasts longer,
my cries become louder,
but there is no one for me,
no one to care, if I cry.

Please wake up
and see my tears
before I can hide them.
Put me to sleep,
please love me back,
love me again,
before I give up on you.

“A Somewhat Lilac Sky” – Nayana Nair

Now that I am made of evening skies,
if I move into that night,
I can’t ever return.
The one who tastes the morning sun,
the one who kisses your lips,
the one who somehow lives on
won’t be me.
So let me remain this beautiful.
Let us stop here.
The snow would be here soon
and time would bring us
small doses of the soothing forgetfulness.
See how you start to love me again
when your heaven and your heart
give up on all their rules.

“Hint” – Nayana Nair

Once I could call you,
call your name
without reason ,
without the anxiousness
that now haunts me
when the phone keeps ringing
or when you stay silent
as you wait for me to take the hint.

-oOo-

I am afraid of bringing up my own name in front of you.
I am afraid to talk about your absence.
I am afraid to hold your hand.
I am afraid of saying ‘I love you’ first.

-oOo-

I keep hoping
that you must have reasons
that have clouded your eyes
and numbed your feelings,
that you are looking
for a way to keep us together.
I keep hoping
even when I shouldn’t.

“Stop my tears” – Nayana Nair

The lines that you drew to my heart
all of them are dissolving,
so easily.
Is forgetting,
is leaving that easy?
I look at you
and try to find somewhere in you
some feelings for me,
an attachment that could mirror
the state of my heart.

-o-

I am sorry that I am disappointed
when I told you I won’t be.
I am sorry that I cannot rise above
this weakness that love brings back in me.
But what is the alternative?
-the lonely days
-the days spent hating the world
-days spent hating the one I love
-days spent in regret
-days spent breaking those whom I can touch but never love
-days spent waiting for you to come back
and meanwhile converting every hour of my suffering
into an life of anger
that you must bear
even if you return
I hate them.
I hate all these alternative.

-o-

I have no option but to hold you
and hope that after all this time
maybe a little part of you would stay,
if only for the sake of stopping my tears.

“Keep You Here” – Nayana Nair

Even a harmless silence on your part
brings me down to tears.
I act in pathetic way
trying to get you back,
trying to buy your love
sometime using sympathy, sometimes throwing tantrums,
sometimes by changing myself, by changing you,
at times pretending that I am done with you
hoping that you try to stop me,
and in my weakness even thinking of hurting myself
if that is what it takes to keep you with me.
But won’t there be a limit
to the trials and errors that a heart can withstand.
What after that?
How shall I hold you here when that happens?

***

I tell myself everyday
I must work hard to keep you in love with me
till you can see in my tiring eyes how much you mean to me.
But often you look at me
as if you can see what I know I have become-
a human who grows new appendages of greed everyday
becoming a monster knowingly
calling it love.
I play this game by myself
wondering meantime,
why my love has turned out like this.
Why can’t we be simply in love forever
like were were made to believe that we could be?
Tell me how to end this,
this end that I want more that anything (even you)
that end is the only thing that is not in my hands.
I don’t know how to stop all that we have started,
how to fix all that I have disfigured with my desperation.

“The Usual” – Nayana Nair

Sure I don’t feel hollow for the every minute we don’t speak.
Sure I don’t wait for your messages when I am with friends.
And I don’t feel weak
even when your anger breaks my back
and your love breaks my heart.

You told me something was wrong with me
and this is not how people usually love.
They find ways to be with each other
and miss everything they had together,
even with the distance of few hours.

You told me, so I doubted.
I doubted the way I loved.
I doubted I knew what I feel and how I feel,
but after putting myself under the heat of
uncomfortable observation
and comparing what I was to every girl you liked.

And now I can assure you
that I love you and I miss you
but just not the way you’d like.
For every hero that walks this earth,
that shines on screens and stories
takes up your face
and every quote of love gone good and love gone bad
brings up our image.

But my kind of love knows not how to turn away from
everything I have always loved
(even my loneliness)
just because I love you.
So sorry for not being the usual.
Sorry for being this weak.

“Counting Losses” – Nayana Nair

I can only go as far as my muscle memory takes me.
Since my mind is not here
and I can’t leave this body
that I have never been able to accept as mine.
There is a road that lies in front of me
and there is nothing for me to do
but to walk.
You bring me back to present
and ask me where I have been.
There is a place that I left lifetimes ago,
where I am searching for the reason of my grief.
There is a sun that rises only in the heart of the lost,
there is a mist I live in that you cannot see.
I can stand at any edge and be sure I won’t fall.
I can reach out for any happiness that I am sure I can’t have
and nothing will hurt me more than that.
There are losses that I am counting,
there are bruises I must count as gain only because of love.
Every hope I find
becomes a reminder of something I have already lost.
Can you teach me-
how to go about this life,
how to get rid of this part of me
that can only love the past?

“The Cold Returns” – Nayana

The steps I walk
and the fate I follow
all run into faces that somehow
already know all the reason to despise me.
Why is it that walking in these shadows
calms my heart and brings it pain
at the same time.
Is this how life is to be lived?
I myself this all the time.
For if not for my own voice,
there won’t be any answers returning to me
from this world that seems more far away
when I look for answers,
than when I look for places hide.

But I look at the moon today with a new eyes.
I find I am no longer alone,
when you look back everytime you leave.
I find I am no longer alone,
when left to myself, I have someone else to think of.
I no longer need assurances and promises
from this life, if only you walk this earth
with a smile and a lighter heart.
The cold returns to my heart again,
freezing your memories forever in me,
and I smile.
I am no longer alone,
nor are you.

“Difference” – Nayana Nair

Her head floats in the sea of sleep,
in the rising and falling waves of dreams,
in the island of blankets
that is kept warm only by her own body.
As the light in her room changes its hue,
the chill on her window
melts into the nothingness
that the day always brings.
Words and vision come to the surface of life
before she does.
She hears her voice
-“I hope this the day that makes
the difference”.
She dismisses it
as the ghosts that have overstayed.
Holding her falling parts in a life
crushed under the weight of its own hopes.

“So many things” – Nayana Nair

The jar of broken smiles
sits on my table,
along with the books and records
of my fading writing.
There are so many things
that wither at my touch.
There are so many things
that cannot be brought back to life.
Their graves lie here dreaming to be resurrected.
So many seconds laid waste in my worry
for the future that never will be.