“Love can only be a safe haven, if we keep this distance” – Nayana Nair

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There is a kind of spell
that doesn’t let love sink into my heart.
It keeps it all suspended
between the layers
of admiration and disbelief,
of trust and that nagging doubt
that I don’t really want to think about.

Like so many, I also believed
that this love-
the shining weakness of my heart,
is safe in the growing cavity of my chest.
That, if the world doesn’t touch me
and I do my part, and never reach out
as well,
then this will be my own small forever.

It will never be hollow
till I don’t test its reality.
It will okay, till I endure
the mocking laughter in my mind
and never think about anything else.
After all, how can I lose a feeling of my making
in a world where only I exist.

But in a world where only I exist
there is also nothing to distract me,
nothing to make me forget the imaginary nature
of my meaning,
nothing else can prevent the ripping apart,
nothing to support the falling structures.
And as I guessed, as I always knew
without ever wanting to admit –
it is just one another thing
incapable of being an eternal something.

This afterimage of another soul
that I try to indulge in,
couldn’t have been anything more than this anyway.
From here, this distance,
from where I can be seen favorably and loved deeply,
this distance
where I can summon in me the spirit of sacrifice
for the idea of this one pure love that I must protect at all cost,
this distance
that gives me a chance at love.

This distance also means
that love never touches
the rocks that my tears have turned into.
It also means that
in hiding everything vicious,
I have also hidden everything that could be me.

Somehow I have learnt to be okay with the fact
that this smile that I get, the kindness I receive
is because the weed that grows on me looks more beautiful
than I can ever be.
I have already dissolved in the earth
to sustain this beautiful face that I am determined
to be remembered for.
It is too late for sincerity.
Now even my hopes have been poisoned.

“Half of my Winters” – Nayana Nair

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I wanted to play this winter song
on the brightest day of spring.
Maybe at least in that way
I will be able to mourn for something
that I should have been happy to leave behind.
But the snowflakes in me
drift into the world
and become butterflies of someone else’s heart.
All my songs now belong to sun,
they belong to scent of summer fruits,
they fall as unpredicted rain
on the windows I closed just in time.
Anyway, I had to learn this sooner or later.
How can I keep believing in my own feelings,
on the things that were supposed to never change, never melt
after losing half of my winters to the green winds of change.
As I place all my “old dreams that don’t suit the new me”
away from my reach,
I wonder if the only way to save the dignity of my old sincerity
is to lock it way from my own skeptical, mocking eyes?

“harmless” – Nayana Nair

i slipped, fell, and cut my skin.
i didn’t want to care, but i did.
i couldn’t help but feel sorry for all the harmless things
that ended up being cursed at, blamed for
only because i ran towards them
with all that i had in me.
i recalled the formula of impact,
that never meant so much to me
till i realized that I also have a body
that follows every law ordained by nature.
that just because i can imagine and dream an eternity,
doesn’t make me or my feelings eternal.
i didn’t want to care about such things, but i did.
i cared so much that it hurt, even when it should’t.

“To the one who who couldn’t change me” – Nayana Nair

The answers I hear
are never the words you speak.

The answers I hear answers are
poorly dubbed clips of proven cruelties and truth
that only a stranger to my pain could utter,
that only you could utter.

It is the thoughtlessness
with which you try to pronounce hope with ease in front of me,
even when you know the names of all the dead ends and dead smiles
where hope has always led me to.

It is the thoughtlessness with which you try to replace
the glowing shards of sad words from my crown
that I have fallen in love with-
my eternal friends who are as unwanted as me.

My crown and its sharpness are just walls for you
and my claims of love for who I am is just an act.

My dark feelings take up more space
than me or you combined
and yet you like to call me small.

Your light
only gives me new shadows to play with
and yet you call me weak.

The color of my eyes and song in my heart
don’t change for your liking
and my love for you doesn’t change.
Yet you call my passions temporary.

While my answers are the ones
that you cannot accept or even see.

My answers exist in a place where I exist
not in a place where you or me would like to be.

I hold onto your hands as much as I try to let go
-that is my answer
Those are the words that you cannot speak.

“Aftermath” – Nayana Nair

Like me, probably many have tried their best
to set their limits,
have learned how to stop before learning how to move.
We recite story of forgiveness,
of patience, of eternal undying love
to our children at night.
and when they fall asleep
we recite these stories to ourselves,
so that we may not forget them.
I remember all the proofs, every news that told me
how wanting more, wanting somewhere’s share of happiness,
wanting too much- can result in catastrophes.
that is how I learnt that some wants can destroy lives,
can create demons out of people.
The one who wrongs and the one who is wronged
just move around this world
trying outrun the aftermath of careless actions.

“Far from Truth” – Nayana Nair

For someone who speaks so much
I mean so little of what I say.
I let myself be swayed too easily
and too often.
I foolishly take my passing feelings and poor judgments
as some eternal truth,
when they are not.

Today, I may talk of my wait
for this sorrow to leave my life.
Tomorrow, I will claim it as my only friend
from whom I do not wish to be apart.
All those contradicting words
are true and heartfelt
but only for that moment of time.
Tomorrow I may as well wake up and say that
my sorrow is you- my beating heart.
And I won’t be too far from the truth.

“White Eternity” – Nayana Nair

The gentle snow,
my longing eyes,
your beautiful smile-
all against the landscape lost in eternal white.

All these are no longer my precious memory of my everlasting love.
I do not remember when you became this person
who capable to such harm and such deceit.
It is a shame that the you from long ago
is only alive in my heart.
And though I do not want to do this
but I can’t keep you in my heart any longer.
I want to forget you
the way you have forgotten me.
I want to let go of this memory of perfect love
that no longer exists.
I can’t keep dragging you to where you do not belong.
I can’t bear to look at you expecting every minute
for a change in your heart.
I can’t depend on you to become what you once were
and I am letting go of you
not with disappointment
but because
I have seen too much of what you are capable of
that I can no longer be the girl
with innocent eyes and longing heart
even if you return to what you were.
So I finally quit being your dream
as you have stopped being mine.

But I know
our silhouettes still walk in the white eternity together
even if we resent them for that,
even if we forget them.

“Draw” – Nayana Nair

I do not draw you.
But my memory of you.
A time in my life,
the moment lost.
With only a memory left behind
that withers everyday.
I do not draw you
to preserves you,
who lives well off
in a warm home
in a cold country.
But I draw you
who lit my mind,
and froze my heart in an eternal hope
The only you I could ever love,
yet never love.
The one who burns my life
one day a time.
The one who I must forget.

“More or Less” – Nayana Nair

It was more or less like waiting
Only there was no excuse of distance between them
Though they walked hand-in-hand,
they knew
this was not all they could be.
Just like noises of traffic merging in the call of birds.
They knew the love they want and the love they have
was not so much different.
It was more or less the same.
Or at least they soon will be.
It was not a question of which person.
It was a question of
how much,
how long.

And they have not lived an eternal life
to believe in eternal love.
But they kept it in mind
played with this idea,
scrutinised it,
made fun of it,
wished for it.

As they wait for their love to
become bigger than themselves,
they have no choice but to be who they are
and live the life they know.
Soon this love will numb their pain.
But it takes time for poison to work.
But it will.
It always has.
Poison, too, can be a medicine.
It is just a matter of
how much,
how long.

“JEWEL ROUND THE NECK”- Nayana Nair

As this light streams into my shielded existence

To light up these lines and touch my soul.

I’m reminded of all the lights in past

That have done so before.

The light that scorched my skin, as I sipped melting ice.

The fiery orange haze around which we sang.

And the streaks of rainbows moving across our notes

From the scales we held in our hand.

The lazy and tired rays of sun

Finding their way through December mist

to reach multitude of small droopy eyes

And prayer chanting lips.

The mosaic of lights of shops and streetss

Where the light from the mirror revealed your smile.

The light in my eyes your presence brings.

The faint light of dawn that filled up my mind.

I wish to gather all such light

All the tiny relevant drops

Even irrelevant splashes

To string them into one

Incomplete jewel round the neck

With that last piece , last light missing.

I wonder what it would be like.

Would it be like my first forgotten light

Or will it be the light of your eyes,

That will see me off at the edge.

Where all pains and joys vanish.

Where bodies die and memories die.

And love becomes eternal with fading light.