“It makes no sense now” – Nayana Nair

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I tried many times
to write about you,
to tell the world
why I loved you once
even when it makes no sense now.

Now,
when the days in the sun
seem like a dream, seem like a ruse,
seem like a bait
to everything that just gets worse.
Now,
when all that we once were glad to believe in
and that we were
has caused us to write this end.

This end
where I have my own sky
but end up looking at the fields below
the harvest, the drought, the spring, the festivals
that you live.
This end,
where your day always ends with looking for that bird
who foolishly broke her wings for you,
among the birds who only dream of flying.

“Fossil” – Nayana Nair

Drop by drop the wax fills
the bucket of broken butterflies.

I am falling into another sleep,
into another death that is warm,
that embraces me like no lover ever has.

I feel the pain in my wings, and unlike other days
I try to think that this will never pass.
That I will remain like this, with a bit of pain always there
in my shoulder blades, under my ribs, aching for a memory that floats
above my body, above my existence.

Someone holds my hand and I let them.
I was always afraid of living and dying alone.
I guess there are many like me.

Years from now they will find us
and probably write stories
about how we loved each other even in death.
As they look at our almost ruined and almost saved faces
they won’t know how we died heartbroken,
how we held onto each other
but never dared to look at each other
or ask the names we had started to hate.
How our skins melted into each other only because
we had nowhere else to be.
That even as light broke free from our eyes
we didn’t want to look like failure.

“The city that won’t decompose” – Nayana Nair

Some days I am thankful to the walls
that never broke down when I did,
that looms up to the heights
that seem more beautiful than sad
(on certain days at least).

The tiny tiles,
the cemented words in me-
they were supposed to be who I am,
they were meant to decompose
when I chose to change my ways,
when I chose to change my heart.
But this ‘me that I have made’
is more magnificent,
more important than me now.

My mask is more than a mask.
It is my life, it is my M.O.,
it is the replies and answers
planned out for every worst case.
It is a solution that works somehow.
It is a city where I live helplessly
not because I am helpless.
It is just difficult
to throw away something I thought I was me.
As my nature melts and takes new forms everyday
this artificial me remains as my only point of reference.
My pretense is the best I can ever be.

“Evaporate” – Nayana Nair

For better or worse
all that made us live
is finally
out of our reach.

The poison in you,
the poison in me
has now nothing to kill
and nothing to cry about.

The days of our happiness
have evaporated into time,
and the clouds, they have
gone to another land.

“Half-Hearted” – Nayana Nair

And every morning I hear wind, I hear birds,
I hear children play around in me.
I am filling myself
with everything that reminds me of what I really am.
I let my heart do what it wants,
my heart wants no part in this remaking of me.
It starts it’s days praying for your return
and goes to sleep, thankful that you won’t.

“Last Everything” – Nayana Nair

There are bouts of tears,
phone calls,
consolation, advice,
and it ends.

The river stops
and flows again.

There are missed calls, busy tone,
letters never penned,
the sky
that didn’t shatter like glass.

The river stops
and flows again.

There is me,
there is you,
there are our days together
and the days we will never have.

Nothing ends
even if I break.
The river stops
and flows again,
even if I lose
my last breath,
my last love to it.

“We are stronger than we think” – Nayana Nair

“We are stronger than we think.”
I always avoid saying such nonsense.
I have always hated words
that have no meaning ,
no real sympathy,
words that almost sound like:
“shut up! stop crying! we have had enough.
don’t make the atmosphere so depressing.
we can’t help it.
you can’t either.
why bring up such topics.”
I never wanted to sound like that to anyone.
I don’t want to be one of those who
consider consoling someone
equal to convincing them
that what they considered precious,
what they considered life shattering
was nothing,
that what the grieving cares for is nothing.

But then, what are the right words?

“We are stronger than we think.”
To spew such nonsense.
Even when I said that to her,
I wondered why I said that.
Have I been surprised
by my strength ever in my life?
Probably not.

But I remember feeling
that my happiest days have walked past me,
when I realized the futility of life, of my life,
my insignificance.
And how I somehow made it to the days
where I found something to look forward to,
where I found myself between people whom I could love.
The fact
that I could wait for such days
in spite of the misery that was once unbearable
must mean something.
To wait for something that may never arrive
must require some kind of strength.
To loose every paradise we stumble on,
to bleed every time it is lost
and to still believe in the concept of paradise
must require something more
than the strength we think we have.

“Stay Awake” – Nayana Nair

You loved well.
I loved well.
The saddest days we have made it though
are proof that.
We have survived through the worst,
it is just that we don’t know
how to love each other in peace.
How to keep our love alive
when there are no enemies threatening it.
The calendars change, the furniture change
and we find ourselves always sitting at opposite end of this room,
suspecting each other of sneaking this distance between us
finding a new worse to fear
and fearing even trying to move towards each other
even when we want to get rid of this silence more than anything.
While you sleep, I stay awake
knowing (guessing) you are as awake as I am.
I stay awake looking into the night
trying to create a monster
that might bring us back together.

“I Hope Not” – Nayana Nair

I stood at the bottom of the stairs,
stones climbing on each other
as my eyes touch their edges
rain dripping from the green slowly taking them down.
Soon I started to wonder as I always do,
when I see a place I have never been to.
In the days I had not known you
could you be here, where I was not.
Can the air here
remember your face as you moved through it.
I hope not.
I hope you never wander to places
I moved through, when you were not there.
I hope you never find me.
I hope no one remembers what I was.
For I am as I was.
How much would it hurt for you to know
that not even you can reduce my pain,
even with all your love.
I hope you were happier before me,
I hope you will be happier after I leave.
Just a few more days
till I think of the way to end my suffering.

“Glass I am made of ” – Nayana Nair

There were days in my life
when I knew the sun could never shine brighter
and I can never be more happy.
I thought these with the innocent belief
of constancy of happiness,
rather than the realization
that put an end to hopes.
Somehow with time the glass I am made of
has bend,
has flowed silently and collected
at safe crowded corners.
And now every light that enters me
is manipulated beyond recognition
into the reflection of my own poison heart.