“What I Remember (20)” – Nayana Nair

I am told I am not wise,
that I do not have the intellect
that could make anyone swoon over me.
I try too hard, put too much effort
to be considered worth protecting.
I rank even lower on the stats of beauty.
I know that since I have found discarded papers
written by boys-who-will-always-be-boys
who document my plummeting desirability religiously.
But since I am not the type to conform
(tsk tsk…so many vices)
I cannot help but choose to take on the role
of the bitter girl
and judge in my mind everyone
who cruelly prosecutes me in jokes and harmless fun in my absence,
but are kind enough to leave behind enough clues
for me to figure out where I must stand in this world.

It has become my habit to consider them desperate,
manipulative and not worth my time or attention.
I know now, how to look down on everyone who looks down on me.
It’s a wonderful feeling really.
To feel like a flawed monster with some control.
To be free from the want to be understood by the “cool” people.
To stop expecting for things to change.
I have enough paranoia and enough stubbornness
to last this lifetime.
I have enough reasons to hate passionately all those who hate me.
I may know too less about life,
I may underestimate the phrase “but-tomorrow-you-might-need-them”
but I cannot turn my other cheek
and I cannot let myself want to be a friends/minion of theirs.
My heart may be dissolving in my own acidic hate for this world
But at least I know I took on my own side in all my fights.
I may not expect much from world, but expect a lot from myself.
This is the bare minimum I can do
to preserve myself in this world that changes everyone in the name of fun.

“Keep You Here” – Nayana Nair

Even a harmless silence on your part
brings me down to tears.
I act in pathetic way
trying to get you back,
trying to buy your love
sometime using sympathy, sometimes throwing tantrums,
sometimes by changing myself, by changing you,
at times pretending that I am done with you
hoping that you try to stop me,
and in my weakness even thinking of hurting myself
if that is what it takes to keep you with me.
But won’t there be a limit
to the trials and errors that a heart can withstand.
What after that?
How shall I hold you here when that happens?

***

I tell myself everyday
I must work hard to keep you in love with me
till you can see in my tiring eyes how much you mean to me.
But often you look at me
as if you can see what I know I have become-
a human who grows new appendages of greed everyday
becoming a monster knowingly
calling it love.
I play this game by myself
wondering meantime,
why my love has turned out like this.
Why can’t we be simply in love forever
like were were made to believe that we could be?
Tell me how to end this,
this end that I want more that anything (even you)
that end is the only thing that is not in my hands.
I don’t know how to stop all that we have started,
how to fix all that I have disfigured with my desperation.

“Sooner or Later” – Nayana Nair

My weakness must have been ugly to look at,
but the only thing I knew I could do
was to take this pain
and name it after you.
I hoped sooner or later
I would grow strong enough.
But in my calculation of sooner or later,
in my desperation and greed
to save you and myself,
my understanding of you,
and of what this world does to you
fell short.
My love was too huge to be carried
in a skin as weak as mine.
This is not the love
that I meant to give you.
This is not the life
you’re meant to live.

“ANTS”- Nayana Nair

As you all walked

To your homes, to your love

To where the crowd takes you.

With love and hatred

And worries in your minds.

With life still in your veins.

I sat there, up above,

Looking down at you,

Oblivious of me, of him.

Of the knots that tightened

Around his neck each second.

While he saw everyone, even himself

Wrenching away from his grasp

The only life he would ever have.

I looked at him beside me

And looked at you down below.

And wondered whether anyone of you

Will remember his face,

Will know his life.

Maybe your hostile glance

Was the last nail that

Broke open his heart.

Someone like you planted that seed

Of self-hatred in him long ago.

I looked at his cuts and bruises

And thoughts of the nights he wrestled

With his thoughts and deeds

He wouldn’t confide nor confess.

As if he was the ant that was

Crushed beneath your boots.

And I wonder, how many other

Were still getting crushed.

Sitting there on that rooftop

With my friend

With stars above my head

And humanity below.

I saw him fall

Fall down in to the darkness.

And I cried as I lost my friend.

And he cried as he lost himself.