“The owners of my mind” – Nayana Nair

I finally sit with people
who have owned my mind,
who have left it astray,
who have come back at inopportune moments
to claim a bit of my peace for their own heart.

They say guilt keeps them awake at nights.
They say they need me once again.
They need to see the smile of another victim
to convince themselves that they deserve happiness,
that they can move on.

They say the echoes of my cries in their head
have grown worse with time.
So I sit with them and tell them that they can live again.
Only because I cannot bear these demands to be forgiven
or the proposals of relationship grown on the manure of my corpse.
So I ask them to forget me, so that I can forget them.

“Absolutes” – Nayana Nair

From my grip I lose
yet another word-
now alien to my lips and life.
From the corner of my eyes,
I watch it die the same death as me.
Now the stories I told myself have become
a little more unreasonable,
when the words and ideas that
I took as absolute
turned out to be just shape-shifting feelings,
the echoes of my lives I could have had.
Is it possible for a voice to be a mirage?
Can it sound more real
than the world trying to get rid of it
Could it be that my hands,
my eyes were always empty?
Or were they just filled with wanting,
a wanting only for things that cannot be obtained,
that cannot be denied,
for they do not exist?

“Whale Songs” – Nayana Nair

My house on hills and its silence
are always occupied in a duel
with the wartime echoes from far away lands,
with the agonizing voices of reality.
Even if I surround my house
with the greenest trees,
place cool streams around.
Even if I cloud my windows
with curtains of smoke.
Even if I barter with life,
even if I am ready to embrace
loneliness for the sake of peace.
In my dreams, filled with whale songs,
there are sorrows
of lives I have cut off myself from.
But I am not someone
who can save people from themselves.
I have no choice but to burn
the letters,
the newspapers,
to keep myself warm and alive.

“I once wrote…” – Nayana Nair

I once wrote a beautiful poem

which sounded like a happy child

playing in an empty church.

The echoes of his laughter and footsteps

playing in a never ending loop.

But I have never been a happy child.

I have never been to a church.

The poem was beautiful.

It was just not me.