“Not only ours” – Nayana Nair

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All the wildflowers of our soul,
all the drops of yellow suns
dissolve in the air of shrieks.
One by one we loose ourselves.
The moments of despair and pain
are not only ours now.

When I speak,
thousands sing.
When I am silenced,
when I accept suffering,
when I am trodden upon
thousands wake up
with bruises they do not deserve.

How should I live?
How should I forgive?
Knowing my pain is someone else’s as well.

“Only Weight” – Nayana Nair

She said
“The moment I glace
at the empty parking space in the sky,
I wait for you to appear
with the plastic wings and your boyish grin.”

The sky does that to me too.
I look at the drooping branch
the sky holds in its mouth,
I wait for you to tear your most beautiful dress
at the knees, your tiny tiara clutched in your hands,
taking that unsuccessful flight again,
leaving behind all the burdensome part of your being
just to tell me the precious secret of your heart.
Just to fall into me, to take me away,
to fill me with life,
to fall and bruise with me,
to make me yours.
As I fail to catch you again,
as you pretend to die over me
trying to hold in your laughter,
I couldn’t help but smile.
I couldn’t help but want you to be the only weight
that I carry in my heart.

“I miss you too” I said.

“Fumbling for better words, better me ” – Nayana Nair

I find myself trapped
between forgiveness and frustration.

How often have I said
that I want to be your strength.
How easy it was to say it
when I didn’t really know you or me.

But now
when your breaking and my sadness
is of your making
I am fumbling for better words-

words that can show my heart
that aches for you and because of you,

words that don’t forget or diminish your own hurt
while talking about the parts of me that are finally dying
after loving you for so long,

words that show my hatred for my brittle self,
for my heart that is not big enough
for real pain or real forgiveness.

Now I don’t know to talk about saving you,
about loving you in spite of the demon you warned me about,
the part of you that is stronger than me and you,
together or apart.

As I kiss you
I hear the other part of you
digging playgrounds in rain, erasing you furiously from
your skin, coloring each bruise with paint of happiness,
clawing me, scaring me, making me scared for you.

As I kiss you
I want to stand with you in your nightmare
I want you to have someone beside you for once.
As I kiss you
I want to run far away from your world
and forget this love.

“The last brick is in my heart” – Nayana Nair

In every country, in every city,
on every street
stands a home that could have been ours.
I am a daydreamer like that
As I passed the house with an always crying child,
as I passed the house with the overwhelming smell of incense,
as I passed the house with singing reality shows played on repeat
I only thought of the life we could have there.
In my mind, we fit every house, we fit every role.
Even if our body was stripped of every muscles and every bone
even if we put back together the wrong way,
even if we our heart were to be rearranged,
in my mind we would still fall in love.
That is how we had molded the spirit of our love-
to be stubborn (if not right or just).
But now there are years when I don’t remember you,
and yet there is no sadness in me that is capable of ruining me.
You are gone
and I am trying to grieve for something I don’t particularly miss.
As I pass the houses where our stories used to be staged
I realize they are again the buildings of strangers
that I am supposed to keep my mind away from.
My sadness selfishly keeps uttering,
“I need to love someone, someone who won’t do this to me.
I need to love someone, to believe in love again.”
I reach home with bloody nails and bruised fingers
leaving behind bricks with our names scratched out.

“Escape Plan” – Nayana Nair

the doll with black buttons eyes – i can be that,
if you also don’t mind being one.
we can sit under the shade of broken wooden chair.
we can call this air-conditioned room our world.
the ring on your finger will longer fit you,
these bruises will finally leave your life.
we can wear dresses that carry no scent of rain.
and we will stay forever as girls without love,
girls without heartaches to cure.

“Selfish till the end” – Nayana Nair

i stumble,
fall,
bruise my face,
find your lips
break my ribs,
kiss your hate
and pray
for the noise of my heart
for your sad voice
to be silenced.
pray that i don’t wake up
for a long long time
is ‘long long time’ enough to be forgotten?
pray that the ones i love
who don’t want to love me, but they do
do not walk into this scene
where i plead in incomprehensible words
for mercy,
for death of my senses
for a sleep without your face,
without your ruined heart
pray that they do not see
how easily i break.
pray they don’t force my last words
to be the words that have always made my heart ache
i love you?

“What I Remember (10)” – Nayana Nair

I want to write about the boring,
about all that is insignificant,
about the trust that lasts,
about the promises that are kept,
about the things we don’t have to beg from god.

I belive there must be some things in life that goes as we wanted to,
that didn’t take our effort, our prayers to go right,
that fell into place so naturally
that we didn’t even notice the ease they gave us.
The boring that is neglected, that is mocked
must be a dream for a person I don’t know of.
The days of charity and donation,
the realization of the lack that we don’t experience
hits us only briefly,
gives us only short lived sadness or gratitude
and a bit of pride (that has a little longer life)
in ourselves for venturing out of our boredom
to witness the lacking of others,
to distribute a bit of what we have in abundance.

But I am not that changed,
I am not that affected.
Tomorrow when I wake up
I will forget
about the stomachs that are never filled,
about the dry glass and throats,
about the darkness that night brings,
about little curious eyes that will never see a book.
Tomorrow, again I will shamelessly
write about my need for love and acceptance.

But that is how I am
and with time I have learned
not to feel guilty for being like this,
for that is the kind of human I was made to be.
I will only be bothered
by the small bruise on my face,
the small cuts on my hand,
even if I know the existence of greater pain,
for that knowledge is not an anesthetic .
I am a petty creature like that
and I can only really feel my own loss.

“Laughing it off” – Nayana Nair

I jokingly said that I would hate it
to be someone else-
someone who would have to suffer me.
But before my face realizes what my heart meant,
where it becomes apparent in my eyes
that I am nowhere near recovery,
before I panic at being taken seriously,
someone cuts me off
with laughter,
with agreement,
with proofs supporting my observation,
with a list of my faults I may have missed,
with an funny anecdote about
about the time I was too broken to think straight.

-x-

I wish I had not broken into laughter when I put myself down.
I wish ‘laughing it away’ was a trick that worked in my life.
I was never mistaken that ‘tricks’
changes reality, builds back and heals
all that is in pieces and all that is in pain.
It’s just a way to turn blind to what I cannot change.
But walking blind is worse than I had thought.
I keep colliding with harmless words, bruise myself,
and recoil back in the fear of what I may find
if I took a step forward.

“Counting Losses” – Nayana Nair

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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?

“Part and Parcel” – Nayana Nair

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That day when it rained of
bruised and dying birds
of feathers marked with colors only
an arrogant and confident cruelty can cause,
everyone looked about for an umbrella
to protect themselves from this vision
that they didn’t want to witness.
This was not the historic moment
that they wanted to be part of.

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I could understand their willingness to believe
that the marks of fingers in the blood and bodies
that filled up the roads
can be called natural causes.
It was probably better
than knowing the names of people whom we may have laughed with
only to know they know how to fly,
how to clip wings and suspend the decaying bodies in air
for eternities,
while we asked them the directions for our life,
while we asked them to tie up our laces as a child,
while we asked them to love us, and build a new life.

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I guess even the innocent
got fed up of being looked at like a potential danger
or tired of looking for one.
It was probably more convenient to come to an understanding,
of agreeing on a made-up fact
that this all is part and parcel of being a bird in the sky,
that birds should know better than to fly,
and tempt innocent humans into life of crime.
Birds at their best should just chirp joyfully
and let everything slide.