“don’t ask me. i don’t know what’s my problem just like you.” – Nayana Nair

.

i would wake up
and find myself again in another room
with another stranger (obviously broken)
and i would try to remember the night before,
the season before, the feelings before
i ended up here. i fail to recall the pain that drew me here,
i fail to remove this person from the mess of all the words
that has been said to me before. before is now a continuum.
and “you”, “me”, and “us” and “we”
are just terms that point nowhere, to nothing
but they carry too many people inside, the seams of these words
are always coming apart, there is too much weight to these light words,
they leave our shoulders and heart broken.
how lovely it would be to be singular again.
how simple everything could be.
but everything tends to flow, tends to merge,
tends to find roots every time it taste defeat, it finds ground.
it is still somehow good. though good is maybe a relative term.
but then everything is relative, even us. me and you are different
only when we are placed far apart in time and space.
as i drown diaries and memories in the waters
of the forests that you used to visit, i find myself
walking as you, sharing your skin of fear,
speaking the broken language of your dreams.
as you, i end up drowning a lot more, losing a lot many
things than i had planned to. it doesn’t hurt, honestly,
when that happens. a lot of things should hurt
but they don’t. and i feel that is my tragedy. i used to feel every loss
even of others and i loved it. and now because i feel nothing
i have taken up jobs on the excavation sites of pain of strangers
that are dying from numbness. my presence seems to help,
at least diverts attention. the “too much” about me helps everyone but me.
i have an excess of blood, an excess of heart
however implausible that might seem. but it is so. i have learnt that
after numerous burnings and denial. all that breathes,
all that seems to be made of magic and speaks in voice of thunder,
anything that we don’t understand
we have burned them enough. we are burning too much of ourselves.
but that is not my problem. at least not my only problem.
i have never had a definable problem. but we can talk as if they are,
as if everyone can be broken down into components
of their loss and yearnings and lacks,
their playlist and bookshelves and friend list,
the people we hate and love and can’t stop to obsess about-
the people we are dying to forget and living in remembrance of.
we sound so noble tonight when we talk like this .
as if we are above the shallow plains of life.
i will forget your name though, and you will also forget
or at least would want to forget a lot about me
that is a totally different type of shallow, isn’t it.
we have shared so much and we will hate ourselves for it.

“As if this all will end” – Nayana Nair

.

There seems to be
a shadow of sadness in our every moment.
An another you, an another me
looking at each other through our eyes.
And they seem know something that we don’t.

“As if out of a dream” – Nayana Nair

.

The leaves flew back to their trees.
The fruits became never eaten, never ripened, never born.
The papers on my desk forgot how to exist for themselves.
For a moment I feared maybe this is how
the past love, the healed hurt returns.
But it wasn’t so.

That day, on that bleak morning
you looked at me
and my heart learned to believe again.
My lips reached out to learn your name.
Your name, as if out of a dream, settled on my shoulders
and told me I can rest.

On that morning, that should have been like the hundred others,
I learnt that in spite of my bitterness and my disappointment
I wanted to believe in this world.
And even in my denial I was waiting for a moment like this.

A moment in which my broken and incomplete heart
is returned to its original state of trust, as if by a miracle,
by your gentle touch of understanding.
I feared calling it love, when I knew that it already was.
No other word would suffice.

“Something made up” – Nayana Nair

now that we both are standing lost
at this market to sell our heart.
now when you are just a silent mural,
i feel like pretending to miss you.
in fact, that is the only thing i do.

every day, i write something
that could make a better monster of you.
every night, i get better at shedding fake tears.
our love looks like a lost cause even now,
but it looks more beautiful
since there is nothing real about it anymore.

“it is all fiction”, i tell them.
“i am a liar”, i shout.
but they love me anyway.
they love me the way you should have,
you could have, it was the easiest thing to do.
there were so many easy things,
things that will never be easy again.
since, i have chosen the most ridiculous way to live
and the most difficult the way to die,
the only non-pathetic way to die in our love.

“Meant to be lost” – Nayana Nair

Drops of your sweet memories
are settled on my heart,
on this morning, in this world
where I was meant to be lost.

It is a relief that
you are here in some form,
that I cannot truly forget you.
Thankfully, you cannot come from past
to ask me whether I have been doing well.
I am not sure what I would do.
Would I lie to ease your heart?
or
Would I lie to hurt you even more?

I do not want to remember the life
that I am living.
I have not changed a bit you see.
Denial was my preferred drug.
Maybe I am able to love you now in some way
because you are not the reality that my heart can’t take
but another excuse to keep my eyes closed.
I can love you now
since you are not here with me
to be hurt by what I am.

“Act Better” – Nayana Nair

I have turned my face
from every confrontation
that I cannot tolerate.
I have stuck to my thoughts
and my denials.
I continue to agree with people
whom I find agreeable
and people who can help me think
that I am thinking right.
I have not learnt much in life.
And even when I realize my dubious nature,
I am not sure whether my efforts to improve
actually improve me
or are they just lessons to act better, pretend better,
to keep my immaturity bottled up.
But I do not mind such an arrangement
even if it is frustrating,
if only I could cushion this world
from the hatred I am capable of.

“Only Place” – Nayana Nair

The discomfort of the afternoon rains
that turns into monologues,
into denials,
into tear,
into slumber
and love
for the one who can never be lost.
Who can only be found in sleep now.
They say what I see,
what I feel,
is what they call dream,
just a delusion to avoid.
But why
only here
I can feel the ground that I walk on
and can trust the hearts that I lean on?
Why must I leave this place?
Only place where I can love
and be worthy of being loved.