“Another Birdless Cage” – Nayana Nair

please don’t ask me how my friend is doing.
we broke up.
we broke up the most decent way friends can break up.
without deceit, without betrayal,
without cruel words or bloody knife on our backs,
without stories to hurt each other with,
without attempts to patch up things,
without deleting each other’s number that we never bothered to memorize.
i do not remember her till someone says her name
and when the sound of her name finds me through a stranger’s lips,
i do not feel bitterness. i not miss her.
a part of my heart is glad that life didn’t turn her my enemy
but a part of me wonders how she turned out to be nothing in my life.
when i see facebook notifications with her name,
when i get a reminder of her birthday,
when she calls me up once in a blue moon
to ask a favor for “her friend”
without bothering to ask how i have been,
what is it that am i supposed to feel?
i think it should hurt in some way.
i am waiting for it to hurt.
i am waiting to realize the meaning of this loss.
i am waiting for the day I miss her.
i want to miss her so much.

“White Eternity” – Nayana Nair

The gentle snow,
my longing eyes,
your beautiful smile-
all against the landscape lost in eternal white.

All these are no longer my precious memory of my everlasting love.
I do not remember when you became this person
who capable to such harm and such deceit.
It is a shame that the you from long ago
is only alive in my heart.
And though I do not want to do this
but I can’t keep you in my heart any longer.
I want to forget you
the way you have forgotten me.
I want to let go of this memory of perfect love
that no longer exists.
I can’t keep dragging you to where you do not belong.
I can’t bear to look at you expecting every minute
for a change in your heart.
I can’t depend on you to become what you once were
and I am letting go of you
not with disappointment
but because
I have seen too much of what you are capable of
that I can no longer be the girl
with innocent eyes and longing heart
even if you return to what you were.
So I finally quit being your dream
as you have stopped being mine.

But I know
our silhouettes still walk in the white eternity together
even if we resent them for that,
even if we forget them.