“If this was Home” – Nayana Nair

There was never a point of time
when I could sit back and say-
“This is home.
This is where I will always be.
No one can take me away from here.
Here is where I am bound to be.”
Because I could never hold onto anything
even when I wanted to.

***

I was always convinced
that there is something very sinister in me
that would be seen, that would show itself
sooner or later,
that I am not all good.
In fact being good is not in my nature,
but just something I carry out
so that people can try to love me,
a behavior I often dropped
when it suited me.

***

But as much as I am repelled my nature
I also end up finding myself pitiful for how I end up alone
and knowing my flaws
doesn’t make me hate myself enough
to stop me from demanding some consolation from my life
for making it so far.
I want to believe that I at least deserve
a small happiness of my own,
if not the joys of entire world.

“Unnoticed” – Nayana Nair

Yesterday, a line etched on my hands
slipped away from the skin that once held it so dearly
and still I lived on as if the the fate I lived now
was the one I was destined for.
I like to call it yesterday
for it is easy to suppose that we always knew what was coming,
that the things we lost didn’t entirely go unnoticed.
When in fact most days we wake up remembering
details about things that have gone to places
where they no longer have to care whether they are still forgotten
by people like us who do such a poor job of caring for anything.
We are always too young to know or too old to bother.
All that find a way to us through this forest of sadness
are disappointed to see what we are
and try best to stay, to lurk around, to be of some use to us,
till we drop them from our mind,
and they stare us in face and try to digest the excuses
that we didn’t even care to give.

“Memorizing Names” – Nayana Nair

There was no joy to wander,
to pack my bags
with belongings not entirely mine
and to have a bagful of borrowed stuff,
of borrowed time.
Living on the kindness
that I didn’t deserve.
Each new handhake
sounded like
echoes of heartbreak
from the future.
I knew where I was going
and I knew where I was taking them.
And that made me hate this ordeal
of trying to memorize the names
of all these new people
who will be soon forgotten.
My heart was never broken.
My home was never broken.
At least not the type of broken
that can’t be repaired.
I do not have shelter of such excuses.
I chose to stay,
I chose to love
and I chose to move away.
I choose to live with the list of names
to the end
than to see them walk away.