“I can bear truth only when it is a figment of my imagination” – Nayana Nair

.

Had I climbed up that mountain
I would have probably seen farther than anyone else.
There would have been roads
that clearly go somewhere.
There would have been an eroding edge
to this globe of loud wrecking dreams.
There would have been a faint hint
of a beautiful eye crying behind a rising cloud.
I would have looked down and searched
and in not finding myself
I would have been happy for a while.
But in a moment that is spelled
with the same frustrated relief
as finding my glasses at the most obvious place,
a peace in me would also have come to an end.
There is the roof where I wrote my life in chalk,
relying on the rain which never came.
There would be a shadow of trees, a group of animals
who refuse to call themselves by a collective noun
and they would have looked happier (probably).
There would have been a monument of marble,
the last pride and plague of ego,
taken down by the masses who moved like landslides.
I would have definitely looked for you.
After all it is what I have done most of my life.
And I would have seen you building yourself again
with your broken tools and shining blueprints.
I won’t know if you were sad or happy
and you won’t know that it mattered to me.
It would have been such a perfect distance to look at you.
A perfect distance to exist with relation to world.
But I won’t climb up there.
Just as I know so much of all that I have never seen,
I also know there is not a particle of me
that has a taste for truth.

“love me all your life” – Nayana Nair

.

as his goodbye, he said to me,

“i don’t want to be yours.
but never stop being mine.
never forget me.
you promised to love me all your life.

be my happiness.
let your tears,
let my shadow reign over your heart.
be my happiness.
never chase away the rain that i am leaving in you
never look for another heart.

be my value, be my worth,
be my pride.
you don’t have to be my love
to have a place in my life.
you can be nothing to me
and still be my treasure at the same time.

i don’t want to be yours
but it would heal my wounds, my ego
to know you will be broken without me
your brokenness will make me more complete
than your love could.”

“The only thing left to do”- Nayana Nair

.

At the back of your hand
I had once planted a kiss
that yearns for my lips till now.

Is that excuse enough,
for me to run back to you one more time?
Would one more time,
would these words be enough
to show that I have not forgotten you yet?

Would you like to stay with this-
this sad piece for me – this mind stuck in time?

Would you walk the distance I am left to cover
and come up with an excuse of your own,
if I took the first hit at my ego with a smile
that only love can cause?

“creation” – Nayana Nair

strangely
even there,
even on the canvas of my imagination
where I get to act the god,
even in that world
where you are nothing but my creation,
even there I can’t imagine
a happier end for us.

-o-

because i can edit our photos
on the cities we never got to visit
and i can write you some words, give you some hints
on how to make me want you want you back.
but even when your puppet hugs mine back
i know it’s only me, my hands,
my heart, my body, my hopes hanging onto something
that would never be you.

-o-

“so let it go“, i tell myself.
“let’s stop calling every ache by the name of love.
let’s put our ego to rest.“

“Letters from my lover” – Nayana Nair

what is the use of loving you
if you won’t speak less and be less for the sake of my ego,
if you don’t have the proportions or face to brag about,
if you won’t sleep with me,
if you have “anxiety attacks” just when i am having fun
(it is embarrassing, grow up)
if my mom won’t like you,
if you can’t give me the kids that i want,
if a career, a dream is still on your mind,
if you still want friends when you already have me,
if you want to write the stupid poems that make me look bad,
if you won’t consider me your god,
if you continue to live for yourself.

so dear, work hard.
work hard
or you will become useless to me.
there is only so much that i can tolerate for this love of yours.

“What I Remember (14)” – Nayana Nair

LOVE IS …

hiding my smile when you walk towards me
talking your name, just because i can
(just to make sure that i can).
feeling like a child when you call my name back.
interrupting the meaningful silence
with pointless debates,
pretending to sulk, acting cute,
being happy to act like idiots for once.
wasting away time,
walking towards nowhere
because that is what we do.

painting each other again
till we get it right.
loving in every way possible.
trying to become the love
that cannot be forgotten.
sweet words, sad past,
family tree in red ink,
lost friends, lost innocence
fill our time.
reliving the past that we suffered alone
in each other’s presence.
finding meaning in destiny,
agreeing with god’s plan,
begging for a day more
of this, this happiness
that fills us with dread and hope
of being understood.

waking at midnight,
hiding my body that you have killed for the day.
waking at noon,
looking for you, giving you second chances.
getting back only one word reply-
‘hi’,’ok’, ‘hmmm’, ‘lol’,’k’, ‘bye’.
waking up again and again.
going to sleep again and again.
murmuring your bitter name in my sleep
with tears i won’t remember.

silence – avoiding uncomfortable topics
silence – avoiding fights
silence – nursing wounded ego
silence – planning revenge (or something of that sort)
silence – being handed the list of shortcomings
silence – being handed ultimatums
silence – having nothing to talk
silence – feeling lonely
silence – ‘love’ has left the chat

waiting at cafes
that sell drinks which taste
like the mass-produced dreams
that make your heart burn
and everything with chocolate
as a cheap therapy,
as they play breakup songs on repeat
to normalize the pain of every kind.

“All the talk about survival” – Nayana Nair

I walking around this planet
talking about survival
as if I actually lived to survive.
I didn’t.
There are many who do
but they are not the ones who are filling the world
with papers filled reeking of envy and tears.
The ones who are really desperate,
who really fear extinction-
disappear as they fear
without leaving a trace of the hurt
that had so engulfed them.

~

I think I have it better.
I know I have it easy.
My pain though has become my life long mission
it only drinks me up sip by sip,
never finishing me in one gulp
but to leave me alive and thriving in the illusion
that the only one suffering in the world is me.
If it does nothing else
at least it feeds my ego
to think of myself as some lost cause
and I think if it was not for this belief
in my great suffering,
I might have seen my life for what it has always been.
Realizing the reality of my life would have been greater tragedy for sure
and maybe that’s why I held on so tightly
to the illusion that I was already in one.

“Can we?” – Nayana Nair

Can we become better that what we are?
We dream of better future.
But we become worse, become bitter
every time our life runs into our worst dreams.
We hope to forget, we hope to let go.
But become restless, become hollow
looking at the parts we are missing
the parts we took from each other
that we have fed to our ego.
Can we become better that what we are?