“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.

“Dreams come true” – Nayana Nair

.

sometimes i dream of emptiness – it looks festive and grand,
it looks like people rushing in
with their wants and talks about wants
and talks about not having their name in any list of wants
and talks about wants that they saw the other say
that they just couldn’t wrap their heads around
and talks about wants that didn’t last that long
and talks about wants that don’t seem to die
and someone wanting to burn some wants
cause they just can’t stand them, cause they just can’t stand
a world that is not filled with their lookalikes
and someone wanting to become a 24×7 monsoon,
so that such an anarchic want can never see any fruit
and then 100 people enter a room which only has room for 10
they are torn between killing other 90 or making the room bigger
by bulldozing the rooms around,
some have already started to eat less and breathe less
and want less so that they take up less space, cause nothing seems to be working,
they sometimes talk about wanting back the past, wanting back the limbs and heart
that, they realized too late, won’t grow back
and the room is now bigger where 100 people are now 10000 people
and the other rooms and other worlds
are now floors the people with better and certified normal wants walk upon
and some keep digging for the ones that are buried, for the ones that still can be saved,
they keep getting arrested and get locked up in cells that have always room for more
and things like that just keep happening-
hurtful things, beautiful hurtful things, ugly hurtful things.
and my eyes see only wants and hurts
and i am not sure
if it is a good thing or a bad thing
that i can’t see another human in sight.

“Virtual Image” – Nayana Nair

“the image in mirror is never formed“

I copied this slowly
from my friend’s notes,
reading too much into it.

I moved my hands
over the new definition of real.

I traced the lines, the dull path of light
as faithfully as I could
but the solid blue lines of ink touch the glass
and are broken cleanly by the laws of reflection, every time.

Only I am left in this world of real stuff
tracing back the path
that only their changed selves could have taken.

But what difference does that make?
People who have changed
do they even want those old dreams?

Probably not, for all I see are points abandoned,
in the world of unpublished fiction
surrounded by crosses of dotted lines,
like the ones that are meant to be torn slowly.

“the image in mirror is never formed“

But it is there, in front of me.
By some miracle they exist
even when they don’t.

Doesn’t that count as real?

The emptiness in me
and in it your face.

Doesn’t that count as real?

“Portals” – Nayana Nair

the wafer breaks and crumbles
my teeth find a red muscle to kill
again my mouth bleeds
but no iron strikes my taste
so i wait for it
i wait for my imagined pain
to become real

i look at my hands
my unsightly weak hands
they are portals to my past self
how they weighed its emptiness even when they held you
how i knew that you won’t last, we won’t last
and i hated myself for knowing it

i wonder if my skin, my lips
gave you a premonition similar to that
did you know that we would end up sharing every hurt
and that it would never stop
that the we would continue to run even when the dream
ends
every cut mine, every drop of red yours
everything painful – only ours

“Upended” – Nayana Nair

i wonder
why i was born so,
with so many roots,
roots that find
only emptiness
at the end of their tips.

“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.

“What I Remember (13)” – Nayana Nair

i did all that i must do
and now no one asks me what’s next.
thankfully,
no one burdens me with with their dreams anymore.
i am no longer a possible candidate for the worst,
for taking over the misfortune of my mother’s life.
i no longer have to worry about hurting my parents by
being like them or living like them.
thankfully,
what bothers me, what eats me up
is nothing that would keep anyone else awake
and that is important.

in spite of this emptiness i write about
and this loneliness that seems bigger than this world,
all this do not stop me
from laughing at jokes, craving for food that i shouldn’t eat,
dreaming of another broken love with my only lover,
from having a good time – that i will conveniently forget.
nothing i cry about, no ailing that lives in me
is too large to stop me from living.

i guess i carry an instability in my genes.
if my eyes are in the color of sadness,
i guess i got it from my parents.
and they are lovely people who somehow raised me right
in spite of having a tendency to mess up things
and their sadness with life.

tomorrow i will probably hate them frequently again
but they will nag at me when i reach home drenched in rain,
will tell me sit straight and force me to eat what will keep me alive,
will ask me to keep my phone down,
and sleep a little bit more.

they will not ask what’s wrong and that will disappoint me,
but they will let me do what i want to do (sometimes)
and they will try their best not to wrong me.
they will wish for my happiness,
even if they have no idea what makes me happy
and that is important.

because though i lived my extended teenage
believing that i had no one,
but it was not true.
i saw no one
and it is my fault.
even when i thought i was not loved
they have loved me silently.
though it was a tiring love,
it knew no end.

“December Moon” – Nayana Nair

I could no longer taste
the nameless fruit
that I held in my hand,
that I hid in my mouth a moment ago.
I fled from one home to another.
I sewed my heart to another
even when it pained.
I tried to find myself back,
pry out my heart from the cage of love
even when I was happy.
I wanted to miss someone.
I wanted to call out a name,
so that my life may not feel empty.
Since I had many names on my lips,
I came to know that the emptiness of my life
came not from the lack of people I loved
but by the lack of people who treasured me back.
So I let the fruit fall to ground.
I let my hunger gnaw at the my own skin.
I forced myself to think of myself,
by hurting myself,
by asking myself to forget.

“Inside our bones” – Nayana Nair

The cup of emptiness that we want to taste
but we never make.
That blue winter inside our bones.
It is not empty nor cold.
It if full of all our fears.
It has face of all we have lost
and all that can be lost.
And it grows everyday
by huge proportions.
It grows as much
as we grow small.