“I hope for them to not see and not know”- Nayana Nair

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The river rises,
another flood is here
and I haven’t yet learnt to swim.
My friends are again at my door.
They knock, then they start crying.
They tell me about the happiness I can’t see,
they try to predict what you
would have wanted me to be,
and all I can do is laugh at it all.

My laugh, it must be as frightening to them as my tears now.
For even as they send me pics of kittens and quotes,
and stories saved from fire, stories filled with hope,
I hear their panic from the other side.
They know that just taking your name
had undone the strength
they tried to feed me for months.

And since now they can’t breathe
everytime I close my door, everytime I refuse to speak –
I am another hell to them.
And since I can’t let them break over me –
they are another pillow pressing on my face.

I hope for them to let me own my sadness.
I hope for them to not see and not know my pain.
But they do, they feel so much of me
that I have to open the door,
that I have to let them hold my hands.

I tell them that I’ll live no matter what
and they still tell me that it is not enough-
they want me to be who I was.
I can only smile at their cruel hopes for me.

“this peace, this staying, this wanting” – Nayana Nair

.

I have spent 10 years
of my life decorating my wooden coffin,
giving food, giving faces, and adding height
to my imaginary friends
and painting forgiving smiles on my imaginary gods.

I won’t mind if someone out there decides to call me
“coward” or “delusional” or “hopeless” or “sorta weird”
I won’t mind if this qualifies
to be called “running away from reality and life”.

Even if I ignore the words like these,
even when I have found a way to survive alone
I am still left with these corrosive, acidic feelings.
Feelings don’t help – when all they do is
speak, wail louder each day.

They remind me again and again
that even a beautiful death is a death,
that loneliness is still loneliness,
that in spite of the ribbons and flowers and posters
the smile on my face is still not as bright
as the one love used to give me,
even if I have now less reasons to cry.

It is not easy – this peace,
this staying away from the want to be seen, to be loved,
this wanting to cry over something again.
It is not easy – to keep myself awake and alive
when feeding myself, seeing the light
only makes my fears stronger.

“I Close Another Window” – Nayana Nair

i close the window that must be closed
a hope that must be dropped.
the flame of love, the hand that holds me,
scalds me, takes me to new places,
makes me sit under a trees
with another unusual bright fruits,
asks me to cry like i did before,
paints me, calls me beautiful,
feeds me compliments, but just enough
that my tears won’t dry.
leaves me in lonely rooms of a rundown hotels
with the promises of tomorrow,
another town, another tear to paint.
as he disappears at the end of the street,
i close the window that must be closed,
a hope that must be dropped.

“Turn Your Face to Mine” – Nayana Nair

The light I can always return to-
that’s who you are.
The darkness I can always sleep in-
that’s who you are.
An amphibian who moves away
from what it will always seek
sooner or later,
who seeks two things
(or too many things) at once;
dancing with and writhing in
not one but two bodies-
that’s who I am.
Turn your face to mine
and see
which monster you have to feed today.

“Divided Heart” – Nayana Nair

We twist in the grip
of our own prejudices.
The valleys of our hatred
have become a part of our scars
that has a throbbing bitterness,
that impairs our vision
and numbs our heart.
Our lives divided by this fissure into
one half looking for a way out of hostility
and other half feeding on it.

“The Idea of Something More” – Nayana Nair

My frail body and mind
were nothing more than what it was intended for.
And I was no better than any other
body barely keeping itself alive.
And though I was fed again and again
the idea of being something more,
being someone more.
In moments like these
I am reduced by my sorrows
to the helpless creature
we all know we are.

“Can we?” – Nayana Nair

Can we become better that what we are?
We dream of better future.
But we become worse, become bitter
every time our life runs into our worst dreams.
We hope to forget, we hope to let go.
But become restless, become hollow
looking at the parts we are missing
the parts we took from each other
that we have fed to our ego.
Can we become better that what we are?

“Moment of Contentment”- Nayana Nair

For me, every moment of contentment
is often followed by the realization
of having a lack of either ambition
or the means or ability to achieve it.
And though I can live with the lack of both.
I often wonder
why do we feel the need to be validated
by some measure,
by some reason,
to belong in one of the circles
that the world is divided into.
When we end up questioning our self,
“Who would be actually there for me
if not for the pieces of me
that I am feeding them everyday?”