“How do you want to be saved?” – Nayana Nair

.

I crawled to the window
in my dress torn by the claws and cries
of people who live in my nightmares.
They like clean living rooms, dark courtyards,
and cars with slashed tires sitting in their garage.
They have
“broken hearts” written down in forms as their identity
and broken chandeliers swept under their bed.
They crouch down and look at me
as the broken lights shine red,
as I see myself bleed beautiful rivers,
as my silent scream become winds, become ripples,
becomes the face that will forever make me cry.
They smile and ask me
“What do you wish? How do you want to be saved?”
while someone else burns the bed that I am crushed under
and asks me “Is this the what the warmth felt like in your mind?”
They drag me out into a forest,
where under the brightest tree of hope,
they stuff darkness into my throat, into my mind
and ask me “Do you still feel empty?”
They are unreal and of unsound mind.
They tell me living in me makes them so.
They wave goodbye to me with a smile,
offering me a sweet candy
for my silence and understanding
It is raining when I open my eyes.
I breathe in the world
where bleeding and burning is irreversible,
where it would lead to an end of some kind.
I crawl to the window
in my torn dress and my exhausted skin
and find myself staring
at people who used live in my nightmares,
people who look more real that the living me.
People who now own more than just my dreams.

“Flowers, skies and me” – Nayana Nair

I place myself in the center of room
as you panic to pack up your stuff,
being careful that nothing is left behind.
There are flowers growing in the corners of the room
that ask you to stay.
There are green skies
that we painted.
There are flaws your and mine
that decorate this wall.
There are TV channels
that we can surf through,
there are days to be wasted.
And I want to waste them with you.

I want you to stay.
I almost blurt it out.
But had it not been for these flowers and skies
and days written in color of your name,
I could have left
to find the dreams I never had.
There is a chandelier
of blood red glass
of your sighs and goodbyes.
I know you are not running away from me
but from our devils,
from our destruction,
that lay between us
every night.