“And everything is a miracle because you love me” – Nayana Nair

.

A summer comes alive,
a branch flowers
at the touch of my hand.
My hands that were just held by you
they find all dead things,
all dark corners of life.
There is so much of life in these hands
that are now desired by you.
There is so much that can now
be brought back to life,
so much that can stop hurting.
There is no way to stop all this warmth
from spilling out of me anyway.
This world, this path of ruins,
this history of us,
existed for this moment maybe
so that we may learn the texture of hope
in each other’s skin,
so that we may see the rebirth of light
in each other’s eyes.

“By holding you back” – Nayana Nair

.

And what do I desire
when I plant my body
in the path of storm,
when I place my hand
on your ailing nerve.

The ideas of gaining,
of becoming, of light –
the unholy invasive light
claiming all my hiding spots,
why do they seem to not matter.

The slow definite end
that I looked forward to,
whose hopes I relied on
to just breathe,
why does it seem hateful
when you are the one
moving towards it.

When my skin knows every surface
your struggling hands have grazed,
when I know sometimes
one cannot just go on,
why do I feel this all is unfair
when you are the one
who yearns to dissolve.

“Something like love, someone like you” – Nayana Nair

.

I held onto my heart
that wouldn’t stop running
towards the possibility of love,
towards you
who smiled at me
and yet never looked back.
I held onto my heart,
clawed at it, in fact.
All because this role of wanting
is an ocean of false memories and false hopes.
This feeling of losing myself to
something like love,
someone like you,
to everything out of my reach
was wearing me down
to a version of me I didn’t like.
Wanting you
has made me cautious, has made me aware
of why I can’t be the one for you,
why I can never be the one being loved.
Wanting you
makes me feel like
I can never be happy again.

Tailoring Myself

I was running from myself, trying to be someone different for each person of importance in my life, tailoring myself to their needs, choosing personas to inhabit and abandon, wearing masks that only obscured my own desires and the gravity of my choices. I was code-switching for the hell of it, without much purpose but with plenty of precision.

-Brandon Harris, “The lies we tell ourselves about gentrification“

A Russian Word

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened
between us, like ostyt, which can be used
for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room,
and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet,
which is to want something so much over months
and even years that when you get it, you have lost
the desire.

– “Letter to a Lost Friend” , Barbara Hamby