“Normal Love” – Nayana Nair

I love
and wait to be loved
only to feel “Maybe I am not that bad”.
I wonder what that says
about who I am as a person.
In love
I can’t help but put my all,
put up the act of selflessness,
of fierceness.
Be the creature of passion
that I rarely am by myself.
How terribly normal I look
in the arms of my shape-shifting beloved.
How terrible it makes me feel-
this normal love,
that I can never get by being myself.

“What I do best” – Nayana Nair

There is a fierce calmness
that holds me together
even when I think
that I will fall apart.
Seems like falling apart
is not that easy
for those who lived in pieces
that they never knew they had.
So I will turn deaf
to the words of love
that presumes that it knows me.
So I will kill time
with preaching words of self-love
that I struggle with everyday.
I will fill myself with the stars above
And I will learn to live
and learn to die.
And wait with dread
for the day I’ll feel complete.
I don’t want to be complete.
I know how to be broken.
Being broken is what I do best.

“Be With Me” – Nayana Nair

My pain sits on my shoulder, clings to my neck

and sings stories of years that defined me.

How it had no one else but me.

It was so fierce, yet so fragile.

I felt the urge to protect it.

From anything. From everything.

I wanted to protect it from every cure.

I wanted it to be with me. To be a part of me.

I felt I would be a little less me

if it left my body.

I didn’t mind this pain decaying my body.

I didn’t mind it’s echoing cries and lament.

I just wanted it to be there always.

But when pain decided to leave me,

I felt that life has left my body.

I cried realizing that it was never a part of me.

I don’t think I cried cause I missed pain.

I cried for there is nothing in my life I can be sure of.

Not even pain.