“Painting water lilies” – Nayana Nair

.

There was a lot of burning that day, I remember.
The black skies still cling
to the corner of my eyes.
But I don’t know fire as intimately as you do.
When I flip through your notebooks,
I only find essays made of water.
The color from my nails seep into the page.
They find the most fragile words,
the true and weak words,
words with a faint crack
similar in the shape
to the one that adorns your heart.
My nails, my cheeks become pale
as all my colors flow out of me,
as if by some urgent need,
to bloom over these words, over you,
to aid you in your hiding,
to shield you silently.

“a piece of writing…that should have been me, but is not” – Nayana Nair

.

I look out of windows of places that I want to escape
and only after 24 hours, only after 12 years
in a poem about crows, in an essay about public school,
in a story, in a ruin not mine
do I find the space to figure out, to sketch
what I would have thought of, if I allowed myself to think.
If I allowed myself to feel, what I would have loved,
what I would have gladly run away from.
The lives that I couldn’t start, the roles I couldn’t end
they leave my skin and become the masks they always were.
I carefully place these masks
on the words that have nothing to do with me
My words
they only hold the mould
that were too painful for me to confirm to or accept.

“Argument” – Nayana Nair

The essays I have written
on the wretchedness of this world,
they are merely an argument,
a poor argument,
the only argument I can give
when I am confronted
by the wretchedness of my own soul,
the blood on my own hands,
the weight of shame on my conscience,
and my inability to change.

(Quote from manga Oyasumi Punpun)

“Throw Myself”- Nayana Nair

There was no breath left to let out

as I throw myself down the stairs.

And every step that I tumble down,

I feel breaking bones.

Muscles and knuckles

losing another bubble of a happy memory

that I once thought would be enough to keep me alive.

My broken thoughts rush into my blood

into my empty lungs,

almost convinced that this the last

they will see of me.

And I never tire out.

I never feel sore enough or pained enough

to stop myself from doing this to me.

But while I took you for another wall

that existed to break me,

another voice to help me fill up

pages of essays of self-hatred

and regrets that do not forget me.

You became the arms that hold me, lift me

And carry my burden of life along with me.

And for first time

I want to live better.

And I want you in that better life with me.