“my eyes miss everything” – Nayana Nair

i try not to think
about the places that are lost
and evaporated
only leaving clouds of colorless memories
floating on my not so blue sky

places that are lost
not only to me
but to this world
now no one will ever know the sweetness
of the light that was never beautiful enough
to be captured and framed
light that is only beautiful only in its death
beautiful only when it rises up without a reason
on the surface of our eyes

how my eyes miss seeing everything
that now cannot be seen
my eyes wake up from the dream of yesterday
into this new day that i must write
feeling that again i have lost something,
something meaningful in that dream
that will never return to me
a dream that i have no right to dream again

i try not to think about such losses
losses with name or reason or heartache
but no matter how much try
some days that is all i can think about

“Cheap Literature” – Nayana Nair

Don’t ask which part of me
are easier to love.

I have tried so hard
to become someone who cannot be be loved
without effort or tears.

My faith in love,
my faith in those who love
or it’s absence
is not so difficult to explain.

Clue: Every pop song that leaves you in shambles.
Clue: The books that you call cheap literature.
Clue: The lovers who want to get to the happy ending fast, so they can think about and focus on more important stuff.
Clue: The sappy feelings that you are not interested in.

Those who first talk of my skin and my volume when they talk of love.
(I mean you.)
Those who think that my view of the world, and how the world views me
is just a phase that won’t hopefully be their burden for life.
(I mean you.)
Those who tell me about my selfishness, my unreasonable fears, my unstable suspicious tiring mind over lunch as they run their blade over every bit of exposed skin of mine. Those who are satisfied when I don’t even wince as I bleed, just the way I have been trained.
(I mean you.)
You have made this whole process
more difficult than it should be.

Don’t ask me the easy way.
I might just begin to hate you for that question.

“Great Escape” – Nayana

Even on this side of the mirror,
in the world of shining surfaces
and sharp and dissolving images,
I have found myself
looking for clues of this fabricated world;
of trying to look for a secret trapdoor
and hidden rooms,
for a way out of here.
Not thinking even once what it meant
to be out of this world.
And even if I make it out
that world that my heart can hold
from afar,
can it witstand the touch
of a person made of light and glass?
No great escape.
No new world, no new word,
can make me more real
than the image I am.