“It took me years, it took me you, to find a truth that was not a selfish reflection of me” – Nayana Nair

.

Once she had a bite of my fate
she became a restless ghost.
She looked like all my ugly wishes staring back at me
but she had a beautiful smile so it was more bearable to my eyes
than to wear my own desperate words on my unsightly lips.
She looked out of place, but in a good way
as if she was the invitation to some place where my light won’t die.
Even in her voice it was my own words
that asked me to leave, that told me to love for the last time.
As my shrieks danced in the empty corridors
she planted a seed of eucalyptus in my palm,
she covered my hand with hers,
and covered our hands in dirt.
She told me how, for years, only the smell of eucalyptus
could calm her mind,
it made her believe that there was a gentle cure
to every disease that hurt her heart.
As she spoke such words that were not extraordinarily sad
I felt my spine become soft.
I dreamt of her leaning against my back
relieved of her every pain
and maybe it was the only beautiful wish
that has ever been born from my heart.
Once I touched the shadow of her heart
I grew and bloomed and learnt to be the one
who waits, heals,
loves, and breaks without bounds.

“and soon it will be time” – Nayana Nair

.

in her two storey house
my doll sleeps on her silk sheets
with a knife resting beside her.
it shines
as if newly delivered and never used,
as if sharpened hundred times,
as if it has known the pain of blood every night,
every night cleaned
under the deafening noise of running tap water.
the metal mixes with her fears, with her trembling hands.
something again slips from her grasp.
and now it is time for tears,
and it will be soon time
for cycles of search and paranoia.
there is a time for every madness in her mind.
there is always a calm wait
before she reaches the next stage of hopelessness.
there is always a party hosted at the dead end of her lives
where she takes another drink,
and finds hands filled with warmth
and eyes that like the color of her healing skin,
the burned tips of her tongue, and her swallowed words equally.
but someone utters the wrong word,
looks at her the wrong way,
leaves the taps water, filled with smell of blood,
running in her mind again,
and again she lunges for the
the knife that fits in her hand better than any hope
and again she ends the song of her lover,
again she wakes up alone.

“I let him drive” – Nayana Nair

I roll down my window
hoping for the first time
that I knew how to drive
so that I wouldn’t have a confused witness
to my impulse of moving forward by a mile
and falling down by a heartbeat.

“Is everything alright?”,
he asks me too often.
I don’t bother to calm him down by saying ‘yes’
as I was doing an hour ago.
Nothing I say can now convince him of my normality.
So I let him drive and let myself collapse.
I bury my face in my lap
and breathe better by suffocating myself a little bit more.

He hums a song that reminds me of the love
that now lives in a country I have not seen
in a life that I will always guess inaccurately
with a girl who has a serious case of klemptomania.
Last time I called the stolen one,
I was given a sorry and an address of a better therapist.

I let my ring burn my heart.
I ask the driver to leave me somewhere no one can find me
knowing he will not, he will take me home
just like he doesn’t everyday,
and he will make sure to greet me
with a kind forgetfulness the next morning.

I wish I had kept more strangers like him in my life,
someone who would worry about me.

“As the fire dies out” – Nayana Nair

After a long time, I feel like walking
towards the calm unknown.
The wildness in me that I had thrown away,
is waiting for me.
They were always waiting
to tell me all the gossips of stars and fishes,
how lost and alone they both felt
to know that blue they had in common
were totally different worlds.

The clothes that made me look somewhat beautiful
I fold them with care,
leave it somewhere you won’t miss.
Their newness would be the new metaphor for sadness,
sadness – yours and mine.

There must be a magic to undo this curse of our feelings.
There must be an answer, a life
that doesn’t necessarily need us to be together.
I will ask the cruel fairies that live in dying breaths
to make you forget me at sunrise,
to make me feel something for you again,
as my life with you ends.

“End Our Tiring Travel” – Nayana Nair

Are we just each others excuse,
just a means to tie up this mind
to a worry and to a calmness made of flesh.
To end our tiring travel
between the states of “living-with-wavering-doubt-of-whether-to-exist-or-not”
to “searching-for-another-temporary-purpose-to-act-as-reins-to-our-heart-going-out-of-control”.
What happens when we are no longer a good enough anchor for each other?
What happens when we no longer want to be moored
to the reasons of this world?

“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.

“Picture Book” – Nayana Nair

Leafing through the pages of my picture book of dreams,
he smiled to himself and said to me-
I can make all of them come true for sure,
you can fill more pages, you can dream more.
The mirror with my face
lost in the light,
lost in thought of love soon to arrive,
while I wait not knowing how to calm myself down.
Where I hold a hand that touches me
like a rare cloud he found on ground.

The roads all lighted,
the words all sweet.
Our heartfelt smiles
at the end of the reel.

 

Going through my picture book of dreams
I smile at him, for not knowing better.
Not knowing that all I want
are for these dreams to die on these pages.
Cause I see the drop of tear that
glistens in the mirror
when my love threatens to leave,
forces me again to change
asks me why I can’t get rid of this mess,
why can’t I be calm again.
Me, wondering how to act
like a gentle cloud that I am not
not wanting to be genuine,
when I get love only when I am not me.

The road all lighted
The words all sweet.
The world going silent
under my scream.

“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.

“What went wrong” – Nayana Nair

Let us not delve into the question
of what went wrong.
I have loved heartache
even as I was trying to run away from it.
I have missed the mess my life was
when I was granted the calm
that I begged for.
Everything I wanted
could never soothe my wounds.
Everything I have loved
was never good for me.
I guess somewhere in my life
I grew numb to kindness and care.
Somewhere in my life
I started mistaking pain for love.
All things were meant to go wrong from there.

“Hate You” – Nayana Nair

I saw you

soft as the clouds of heaven.

I felt you

covered in the condensed drops

of love that the whole world breathes out.

And I hated you for it.

I saw your skin marked with me.

I saw the cracks in your smile

covered in my kisses.

I saw my reflection in your heart

that was made for my thirst.

I saw my heart.

I saw what hid there.

I saw the storm that never calms.

I saw the poison that has no color.

I saw your eyes become the clouds,

I saw it rain.

I saw you tremble as earthquake

that tries to contain itself.

I saw you make your home

in my storm.

And I hated you for that.