“The ground I won’t find” – Nayana Nair

.

Even when I run away from you.
Even when I hate you from the depth of my heart-
the same depth where only you can breathe,
where I can allow no one but you.
Even then
you sit there, in front of me,
reminding me
how difficult it is
to destroy this love,
whose truth and strength
outlives
each sad, tragic moment that comes our way,
each moment of separation
that we are capable of creating from our ugly wants.
Once I couldn’t have imagined
the joy and frustration
of having a love like that.
A love that has no end
when end is all I want.
A love that tells me again and again
that I do not really know anything
and takes away the key of choice every time from my hands.
A love that will not even spare me to stay alive.
What a blessing! What a curse!
To have this bottomless hope.

“Minimum Limit of Thirty” – Nayana Nair

.

And when we had run out of pleasant things to talk about
I asked him things he didn’t ask me,
things he didn’t want to be asked.
But I was bored of the all this peace,
all the ants that crawled into him, into me
maintaining separate lines,
to reach the places in us
we both didn’t want the other to see.
I guess I wanted him to be different,
I had more than enough people
who wanted to love me without knowing me.
I guess I wanted to be difficult.
For once I didn’t want to be the easy conversation,
the easy way out of pain.

I asked him
when the waves of life try to reach his foot,
what does he do?
Who does he think of?
Whom does he drown in his mind
every time, every moment
to avoid knowing what he really feels?
Does he almost hold that hand,
does he almost save the one who will kill him first,
who has always killed him
without hesitating?

He seems to be the type who would do stupid tings
on repeat at least thirty times
before giving up on the one
whose love didn’t surface
even after the thirty wounds, or bloody hands,
or hundred considerations.
He looks so breakable and so happy
I wonder if in the hollows of his heart
where his anger and disappointments hides,
are there flower beds of daisies,
and a heart that can never be broken?

Is this how I look-
like him, plagued and haunted by beautiful dead thing?
Is that why he smiles at me without saying a word?
Is that why I can’t smile back?

“I want you to see the world” – Nayana Nair

i will read you another story
so that you may know
that faults and lacks of humans are common and in abundance,
how ordinary are expectations-not-met.
i will read till my eyes close
till you can see all there is to see,
till you see everyone around you
who are disappearing into silence,
till you see all the kind words you could have said to them,
till you see that these words, that make you cringe,
how important they are
how easy they are to say, how difficult to mean
till you learn to mean these words that save lives,
till you learn to listen to others,
till you grow the eyes
that can see the world before it is lost.

though there is another story for another day
about how to save yourself from all that you have saved.

this is not how i should be – Nayana Nair

I hate to admit this to myself
but I can’t quite understand you.
At worst, I judge your unreasonable feelings
and your self-indulgence.
Often I step away and try hard to feel your pain
and yet it escapes me.
Whatever I imagine is the landscape of your heart is,
it is never quite correct.
Something really important,
probably a loss that I have never faced,
is missing from my understanding.
“this is not how i should be”-
I end up thinking this every time when I think of you.
When you say “you won’t understand”,
I once again realize how insufficient I am.
Because you are right.
Because I can’t understand.
I wonder if one day I can do something more than just loving you.
I wonder if one day I can see you as you want to be seen.

“Cheap Literature” – Nayana Nair

Don’t ask which part of me
are easier to love.

I have tried so hard
to become someone who cannot be be loved
without effort or tears.

My faith in love,
my faith in those who love
or it’s absence
is not so difficult to explain.

Clue: Every pop song that leaves you in shambles.
Clue: The books that you call cheap literature.
Clue: The lovers who want to get to the happy ending fast, so they can think about and focus on more important stuff.
Clue: The sappy feelings that you are not interested in.

Those who first talk of my skin and my volume when they talk of love.
(I mean you.)
Those who think that my view of the world, and how the world views me
is just a phase that won’t hopefully be their burden for life.
(I mean you.)
Those who tell me about my selfishness, my unreasonable fears, my unstable suspicious tiring mind over lunch as they run their blade over every bit of exposed skin of mine. Those who are satisfied when I don’t even wince as I bleed, just the way I have been trained.
(I mean you.)
You have made this whole process
more difficult than it should be.

Don’t ask me the easy way.
I might just begin to hate you for that question.

The Scale of 1 to 10 (part 3)” – Nayana Nair

#the right time to answer the door

The doorbell has been ringing for hours.
I wish I could say it was annoying. But it is not.
A part of me is happy to know that you are out there. That you know that sooner or later I would answer this door.
It has been long since anyone has deemed me good enough to take trouble for, to wait for.
Is that good enough reason to say yes. Does that mean that I love you back?

    "Each and every one of your actions
     Puts me up and down
     I’m not someone who smiles this much
     Looking back
     I suffered a lot because of you too
     But each and every one of those things
     I don’t hate it"
     - "I love You", Akdong Musician

On days like these, I put on the music at the highest volume. To get rid of this awareness of another heart counting on mine.
But today I am afraid to do something like that. I am afraid to disappoint you. I don’t want you to think I am avoiding you. Even though I probably am.
I want to hear your every knock, I want to see how my heart beats as I sit here afraid of the moment you give up and stop.
I feel guilty of what they call “playing games”? But you know that is not who I am.

    "I hate to make it obvious to you
     I am more accustomed to endure this alone
     please understand me"
     -"Lonely", Jonghyun

    "Oh they say love is for the loving
     Without love maybe nothing is real
     So am I loveless or do I just love less"
     -"Home", Passenger

    "Even when I stare at something
     Even as I blink like the windscreen wipers
     I wanted to continue holding on"
     -"Rain Bird", Code Kunst

You want answers that I do not have.
And I have never let you leave empty-handed. Even when you came to me on rainy days with only sorrow, I have held onto you, I have tried my best to keep you together.
But this, this love, this is something too difficult for me.
It is a question that I cannot answer honestly. No matter how hard I try.

    "Stories of ours of our closeness,
     aren't any less.
     So many times I have turned
     my mornings into evenings sitting in your presence."
     -"Channa Mereya", Arjit Singh

    "If I told you with a crying face that I am having a difficult time
     would it be better?
     So who's going to have a harder time? If I whine about being in pain
     will everything be okay?"
     -"Lonely", Jonghyun

    "Right now the time is wrong
     I've been writing these songs 'bout how I can't be with you"
     -"Monster", Henry

I want to hang on to a future, any future with you. But should I say things I do not mean to keep you here with me.
Should I keep bringing you flowers that I cannot keep alive?
I may have helped you live for a while.
But I am not the one who heals. I am not the one who understands. I am the one who eventually fails at being the person I am loved for.

    "I don't believe in shootin' stars
     But made a wish and here we are
     But what if we're not meant to be?
     What if dreams aren't meant for dreams?"
     -"be", Gnash

    "You’ll hate me, you’ll go crazy
     You’ll regret, saying you shouldn’t have met me"
     -"Be Well", Sechskies

    "At times I'm disappointed with myself
     Honestly, I trample myself (trample myself)
     "Do you only amount to this?""
     -"uhgood", RM

I am at loss for words, not because I don’t need your love. But because I never expected it.
I am hiding not because I am afraid of opening my heart. I am hiding, because my love is and has always been about thinking for you. To think what is best for you.
Love sometimes becomes a synonym for giving up. I am not stupid enough to think that we are a better than that fate.
I am afraid as I am not sure what you’d have to give up for choosing me.

    "Yesterday, I was awkward
     Today, I’m lost
     It wasn’t an easy day
     The world I used to live in
     And the temperature of today are so different"
     -"I Pray", Motte

    "There’s no such thing as beautiful goodbyes"
     -"Outro:Tear", BTS

My past has become my brokenness. Your past lives on as your vulnerability. I want an answer that doesn’t break us anymore.
But I am reluctant to ask around for the answers I don’t know.
I am reluctant to learn the causes of the ship that sank down in the best promising weather. I do not want to find your reasons or my answers in the words of friends or strangers who only talk of giving up or settle down.
I don’t want the answer that our fear of loneliness dictates.

    "In this love abandoned Autumn
     We'll go raking up the leaves, yeah
     The leaves that leaves that have fallen
     From these cold and dying trees
     In our hearts"
     -"Bloodstains", Passenger

    "You’re like a flower petal, waiting to fall
     You’re like a numb person
     Walking towards the edge of a cliff
     The longing image of you
     Smears over me"
     -"Almost there", VIXX

    "I don't know what I should do.
     My heart is crashing down."
     -"Wa-r-r", Colde

I am waiting for the right time and right heart to answer your feelings with the sincerity it deserves.
I am sorry that my sincerity comes with wait, hurt, and misunderstandings.

    "When I see you so tired, 
     to you
     am I a burden perhaps? Am I too much for you?"
     -"Lonely", Jonghyun

    "My eyes were shimmering with tears, 
     however, in my heart, I remained warm
     Firmly you told me, again and again you told me,
     how much you loved me."
     -"The moment", Aaron Yan

“Eavesdrop” – Nayana Nair

From my empty room,
from the edge of my personal cliff,
I looked into the windows of strangers,
looked over their shoulder at texts they write,
looked at the pages where their bookmark rests,
silently waited at the edge of my chair
trying to overhear responses to the big questions.

And all I have known by prying so hard
is that there is nothing there.
Nothing in the text that could pass for shorthand.
The same book rests on the same table for years,
serving only the role of a carefully thought out accessory.
No question is big enough to be carefully considered.
No relationship is important enough to be held to heart.
That I was foolish to believe otherwise till now.
That I am putting myself on another path to heartbreak
if I do not believe in the night that I see.
I must unlearn the way I have lived
to find a place to belong.

In between the cold beginning and cruel ends
that are the parentheses of our lives,
there is nothing for me to hang on to.
But it helps to know
that there are plenty of empty rooms in this painful smaller eternity,
that I need not kill myself over an emptiness so common.
And it is really difficult to feel alone once I know that.

“I am not mistaken. I know it doesn’t hurt you.” – Nayana Nair

I wish for once to be unstable enough,
to lose it for once,
to kill every part of me that wants to take your name
every minute of the day,
to throw away this shit that you have
engraved me into-
into your bigger plans, into your list of exes,
into the list of girls who would never be good enough for you,
into the the stories you would prepare in advance for you next girl,
stories with my name,
into the list of people you block and regularly check on
just to ensure they do not find happiness without you.
I want to do something other that to be bothered by your existence,
to be obsessed of my role and use in your life,
that is now separate from mine.
I want to be myself for once, than to be just another girl
whom you no longer want.

“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.

“Counting the Pieces Left” – Nayana Nair

shadows of evening
are still in my room
the morning rays,
the flickering light bulb,
your laughter,
they don’t do much.

cause this life
of mirrored sunshines and smiles
makes me feel nothing.
there is something wrong with my heart
which you might have known all along.

i toss another piece of me
into the ocean.
it is one other piece of me
that you will never see, will never have again.
you hold my hand and tell me
what i have thrown away
was too difficult to find in this world,
that it was your most favorite thing about me.

i want to cry and apologize to you
but i sit there feeling relieved
now that I have one less thing to lose.
there is something wrong with me
to not want your kindness and your love.
it is not your fault dear.