“A leaking instrument of love” – Nayana Nair

.

Some part of her
has taken root here.
In this forsaken place,
she flowers and spills
the soft resilient petals of sun
on the dissolving roads,
on the floods of blue.
She lays her soft claim
on the wings of unnamed birds,
on the broken shrines,
on the leaking instrument of word,
on this throat
that knows her name
to be the only god
capable of a love so tender
that she becomes the holy wind
in this sail of a skin,
this skin that heals and breaks
and blooms with blood, only to
become, only to remain
as the last trace of an impossible embrace.

“The Right Way” – Nayana Nair

.

The monsters brought their shadows
as they climbed into my bed
and I gave them stories
that promised to make them human again.
I had talked them into the idea
of change and love and the broken petal
that became a flower overnight
in the embrace of a care so fierce it
that nothing in the world could stay broken
once they knew its warmth;
just liked they talked me into
the ideas of strength and hiding and the stones
that teach the skin of blood, bruise and eventually a strength
so stubborn that it can never be separated
from our bodies, our sorrows, and our will to fight.
But many hours and a sleep and a love later
we still found ourselves staring at the
broken windows of hope,
and the stone of disappointments
melting in the morning light like snow.
Each half of our heart now wouldn’t stop crying
and begging for the other half to change.
Every part of us was now contending with each other
on the monopoly of truth, the right way to love,
and the safe ways to die. Our surety of self was evaporating
faster than ever. We were being broken from inside,
scattered for good, while our skins now knew the same battles
of keep up a form, keeping our reality hidden.
But now we could at least now sit in a room
and look each other in eye and smile,
knowing we could never be separate from each other.
Knowing there is no hell or heaven we would go to alone,
no forgiveness only granted to one.
There was no sin or or grace in this kingdom of cries,
there is no beautiful escape from this knowledge of life.

“It was difficult to believe that I could be loved just as I am. It was odd that we had to be told. ” – Nayana Nair

.

The frame of winter breaks
the snow drips, flows, and climbs
like a relentless silver creeper,
like a god finally on its way
to end the reign and terror of heaven.
Our eyes stare, amazed at the cold white spiders
running across the face of the sky;
the music and the metal dissolving the distant names,
dissolving the knives we decorated our heart with.
We could all feel an equal summer light
embracing our backs silently.

“The best way to disappear” – Nayana Nair

.

My emptiness is finally put to use.
The fishes swim in me –
the luminous disfigured creatures of depth
and the beautiful dying ones of light,
fill me up one by one.

I teach them songs of sorrow.
I hold them in my endless embrace
singing them back to life
and in return they let me feel like someone
who can protect, love, and shield.
They let me feel things no human ever could.

Even though I hate to be seen
I smile as my body is put on display.
My skin, the strongest glass.
My skin, the weakest beams.
The shallowest of oceans I become.

Humans hold hands, hold themselves
as they stand before me.
They find possibilities, mysteries, awe
in all that I hold inside,
in all that isn’t me.

“These Roles” – Nayana Nair

.

You smile
as you place the plates on table,
as you serve meals made of fire
in front of my body growing cold.

You smile
as you drag your feet
from the threshold of the door,
as you run towards the world,
as you swim back towards me.
Knowing, always knowing
that I also feel the weight of this water on us.
So you smile a bit more
and always rush to me to as if you are the lost child
when you also know the muddled one is only me.

I feel your doubts soften in my embrace
thinking of all that i have been and all that I ever could be,
all that you will ever love and never need.
And in my turn, I summon a smile thinking of what you are,
of the gentleness of your soul, of this genuine heart.
And just like our hands that are never still
trying to mimic and catch up to the heart of the other,
we are forever melting between these roles.
And because it is so,
because even this small me can save you with a smile.
I can love you even when you get wounded in my hold.
I can love you even with a guilty heart.

“Understanding freedom” – Nayana Nair

.

He broke my shackles with his blood
and took my hand,
my weightless hand, my almost wings,
and held them in the warm embrace of his own prayer.

As my hands created ripples for my own amusement,
as my hands broke the bread that I would now get to eat,
as I looked at flowers for hours at leisure,
and sang wordless songs without the fear of being heard
-he cried.
It was beautiful and sort of silly – his tears.

He cries at the smallest things
yet is unfazed at the moments that require tears.
Like this farewell, where with a smile
he recites his memorized list of wishes,
he recites the feelings of hope he has for the ones before him.

He looks at me. He looks at us all
and says “you are free. this is now a game without masters.
this is now a world where you are as good,
as deserving of respect
as anyone you stand with or stand against.
you are free. live. live such that
you would need no one to remind you of that.”

As we cried, he told us that
disappearing is what he always meant to do
that wanting his shadow around,
seeking his approval, and following his words
would undo everything he has done in this world.
Yet our tears won’t stop.

We didn’t know if these tears were of desperation,
of relief, of love, of being abandoned,
of being left without directions or heads that could
do the work of seeing and thinking for us,
in return of our submission.
He told us it is sometimes okay not to know.
He said it is okay to hate him
if it helps us to find a way that is our own.

It broke me to hear that because
he spoke as if being okay with being hated for saving
was an essential part of being good.
It was sad that he had to smile when he said it
as if he was not free to cry or complain for something like that.
Or maybe I have not understood freedom yet.

“The closest far away” – Nayana Nair

.

She let go of me
and took a step back,
as I ran around all the space
that would be me,
all the life that would be ours.

From far away – the closest far away,
she looked at my childish smile.
She smiled a bit more, and I felt that,
the lovely curves of her lips on my heart.
Her smile always miraculously
makes me breathe more easily.

In this room, in this warmest freedom
that she has weaved from the most colorful threads
of her spirit,
here, I see her for all she tries to be,
for all she is thereby.
Here, I want to be seen by her.
Here, I want to be something more than my wants,
something more meaningful than just free.

I move back into her embrace and ask her to take anything,
anything beautiful she finds in me,
to keep all my goodness, however few, in her care.
I wanted her to grace a part of me with her identity,
I wanted my existence to be inseparable from hers.
But her will, her love turned out to be greater than mine.
Even when I left a part of me in hers, she refused to call it hers,
the world punished me, for my greed, by calling her mine.

“Invisible with every word” – Nayana Nair

.

The last stranger at the funeral home
brought in the worst rain of the season,
the coldest wind of the night
along with your last letter.
He leaned against the window
and called up everyone he won’t be able to meet today
looking at me all the while.
As if he knew every word that I was reading.
Probably waiting
to see whether I cry at the same lines that he did.
His eyes look like the ones who have got used
to crying for things that cannot be undone,
for a life that cannot be.
I wondered if he loved you. Maybe he did.
Maybe you knew. I hope you did.
He sat beside me
trying not to grieve more than a mother,
trying not mourn like a lover,
making himself invisible with every word
i read under my tearful breath

“…even when I sat at the dinner table with my brightest smile and deepest hunger, i couldn’t convince me that i needed to exist here.
even the warmest embrace of this world could do nothing but break me. i knew opening my heart could only bring floods and all ends of all kind.
i knew all along of this end. forgive me for pretending otherwise….”

“Would I Know Such Day” – Nayana Nair

.

If I didn’t try
to breakout of my bones
so often.

So often
facing the noisy swallows of regrets
eating out of my mouth,

holding my insides,
choking myself
to kill all my ugly butterflies.

Would I know
what normal is?
Maybe not.

Even then I may have stood away.
Far far away
from where love lives and love works.

Or at least that is what I am told everyday.
That only my cracks and my seeping blood
makes me different, makes me special.

What makes me hurt myself, hate myself
I am told to embrace it back
only because it is beautiful.

So that is what I do,
I embrace it even if it kills me,
till it kills me.

The Scale of 1 to 10 (part 5)” – Nayana Nair

#enemy_of_hope

On my way to you, there is a world that I must walk through. In the dense fog, through the things truer than us, the steps that I take are the heaviest, the decisions I make the most difficult.

“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons every where
Looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all”
–“Both Sides Now”, Joni Mitchell

“I embrace the world and take a quick, deep breath
The stinging air that fills my lungs says it all
Yeah, I who wanted to escape countless times
The long times I suffered through, becoming numb
Right underneath those times
Everyday I pray
that I can be a little better grownup
And everyday I stay
Because all humans and all the pains eventually die
We have to face the wind to become numb”
–“Everything Goes”, RM

“As much as my heart flutters, I’m just as afraid”
–“Serendipity”, Jimin

There is a sky that sometimes waves at me, sometimes sings to me in rain, sometimes reminds me why I must stop. I have followed rivers as blue as this view to find a feeling resembling love in me, I have created a version of myself softer than these clouds so that it is only me who is hurt in the stories that I tell you when you find it difficult to find sleep in this world. Stories that you recite back to me, on the days my heart refuses to beat for anyone, even for you, even for me.

“Just when I thought a day
As beautiful as everyone else’s
Was about to start
Clouds out of nowhere
Gather to pour down their rain”
–“October Rain”, 10 cm

“If I was only by myself
If I didn’t know you
Maybe I’d have given up
Lost at sea”
–“Heartbeat”, BTS

There are steps made of stone, a corner store selling smoke to kill or to cloud my heart when it gets unbearable, a house falling apart with a kid gone lost, a kid falling apart in the reckless pursuit of something better than the safe shadow of easy peace. I pass by them to the next road, pretending that I do not know the possibilities of great failure awaiting us all, especially them – those who wait for change with a heart of hope.
I walk a bit faster, just as you told me. I do not let my shadow, the sound of my restless steps reach them. I think of you and keep my pace. I think of you who will make me forget this unpleasant afternoon, this misfortune of seeing myself before I was wrecked.

“I see Pinocchio wearing a poncho
That’s me some time ago.”
–“Tokyo”, RM

“Maybe I got stronger
Maybe I got indifferent
I used to cry only once or twice a year
But now tears are coming
On this hidden path”
–“Nosedive”, Dynamic Duo ft. Chen

“If I keep walking around reality, impotently
Sometimes, I feel like a ghost
Loneliness is like a grave
But you always take me out of it
You’re like the chorus of this song”
–“Nosedive”, Dynamic Duo ft. Chen

“You’re my painkiller
When my brain gets bitter
You keep me close
You keep me close”
–“Painkiller”, Ruel

“You seem like the whole of this world to me
Harder and more painfully embrace me”
–Best of Me, BTS

My heart is an enemy of hope.
My hate for hope rises more and more everyday. It rises like a child filled with helium and happiness, it flutters like a flag of a nation I do not recognize and can no longer love. My hate for hope, runs through the carnivals, through the fields of futile dreams that my feet trample and waste away. It runs into your arms of firework filled with love. And you, you smile, confused if it is okay to have such a stubborn single-minded love born out of hatred for the world, wondering if you are bad for me.
My heart is an enemy of hope that never wanted you, never dreamed of you.
My hopes still sits beside me, telling me about the things I could have had and loved instead. Sadly, my hope never dies.

“I began to change,
began to fall, and be steady..
since I have known you,
I have started to move toward you..”
–“Hasi Ban Gaye”, Humari Adhuri Kahani

“I can’t sleep, homesick, babe.
I just wanna stay right next to you
If I could choose my dream
I just wanna stay right next to you.”
–“Tokyo”, RM

“What kind of soul do you possess
to have something that ties me to you like this?
Even though I don’t even have old nostalgic memories of you?”
–“Seoul”, RM

“Yeah, even if I want to fly, I don’t have any wings.
But your hands become my wings.
I want to try forgetting the things that are dark and lonely
together with you.
Even though these wings sprouted from pain,
they’re wings that face the light.
Even if it’s hard and it hurts
if I can fly, I’m going to fly.
Can you hold my hand
so that I won’t be afraid anymore?
Because if you and I are together
I can smile”
–“You Never Walk Alone”, BTS

I force myself up the uphill road. I cling onto railings and walls decorated with moss. I am never alone on such roads, I become everyone I face. I almost become someone you could never love. I am army of possibilities, an army raging against your reign. I become the person who, even under your closed eyes and soft breath, cries for all that ended up dead just for me to love. I become the person who placed his ears on the ground above your ribs, searching for a way out. I again become the faceless heartless entity enchanted by the the glitter of masks that demand a sacrifice, of you and me.

“If I could make sense of it all
All the hours I don’t understand,
the time we can’t go back to,
the moment filled with nothing but regret –
it seems like all those times will go flying
I don’t know how to cope with the feelings
that I’m feeling without you now”
–“Insomnia”, DA￦N feat. YAYYOUNG

“Sometimes I’m disappointed in myself
I willingly trample on myself
“Is this all you are?
Have to do much better.
You have to be much cooler.
If you’re gonna lose, might as well die
You have to win, you you you.
You.”
–“Uhgood”, RM

“I’m now so tired of you
Your constant ash-grey expression
No, no, I’m afraid of myself
Because I’ve already become a part of you.”
–“Seoul”, RM

“But I can’t give up the “me” that you know of.
I can’t let go of the “me” that I know of.”
–“Uhgood”, RM

When tomorrow comes,
How different it’s gonna be?
Why do love and hate sound just the same to me?
–“Tokyo”, RM

My way to you is a world always in turmoil. It is also filled with glowing breadcrumbs of your love. I could never lose my way even within myself.

“But I believe, even though it’s unbelievable
Losing way
Is a way of finding way”
–“Lost”, BTS

Even if it is the path I chose,
and everything is a fate that I created
Even if it is a sin that I committed,
and this whole life is only about paying for my sin.
Walk with me.
Fly with me”
–“You Never Walk Alone”, BTS

“I have not seen “the end” for me yet either
But if that [end] existed, wouldn’t it be you?”
–“Best of Me”, BTS

“What can I do? I speak with your words
And I breathe your breaths
I’ll be you
You, who are holding me,
I kiss your sword”
–“Best of Me”, BTS

“On rainy days
Lying down, not a single word
Gazing with our eyes closed, everything becomes ours”
–“Everything”, The Black Skirts