“Assignment” – Nayana Nair

There was that pile of paper
I could never keep safe.
The crossed out, always crossed out words,
words always out of order,
words turned beautiful
only because they dissolved
in my frustration.
Only because now I cannot read them
without effort.
I must make something out of them
something that couldn’t possibly be mine.

The blue ink dripping,
forming planets on unexpected letters,
forming planets on my hands.
I would take them to class
and look at them as if now I meant something more,
now that I was suffering for something I want.

I raised my hands to answer a question
I have already answered hundred times.
I sat down and swallowed my teacher’s frown.
He didn’t have to teach me
that right answers matter
only when they come from right mouths.
(I once got an A only because I forgot to put my name.)
I knew there was nothing I could learn
by swallowing frowns everyday,
but still I dragged myself, my broken planets,
my half burnt poems in my half burnt hands
to the one who doesn’t think twice
before asking me
to hate myself better.

“The city that won’t decompose” – Nayana Nair

Some days I am thankful to the walls
that never broke down when I did,
that looms up to the heights
that seem more beautiful than sad
(on certain days at least).

The tiny tiles,
the cemented words in me-
they were supposed to be who I am,
they were meant to decompose
when I chose to change my ways,
when I chose to change my heart.
But this ‘me that I have made’
is more magnificent,
more important than me now.

My mask is more than a mask.
It is my life, it is my M.O.,
it is the replies and answers
planned out for every worst case.
It is a solution that works somehow.
It is a city where I live helplessly
not because I am helpless.
It is just difficult
to throw away something I thought I was me.
As my nature melts and takes new forms everyday
this artificial me remains as my only point of reference.
My pretense is the best I can ever be.

“Meant to be lost” – Nayana Nair

Drops of your sweet memories
are settled on my heart,
on this morning, in this world
where I was meant to be lost.

It is a relief that
you are here in some form,
that I cannot truly forget you.
Thankfully, you cannot come from past
to ask me whether I have been doing well.
I am not sure what I would do.
Would I lie to ease your heart?
or
Would I lie to hurt you even more?

I do not want to remember the life
that I am living.
I have not changed a bit you see.
Denial was my preferred drug.
Maybe I am able to love you now in some way
because you are not the reality that my heart can’t take
but another excuse to keep my eyes closed.
I can love you now
since you are not here with me
to be hurt by what I am.

“In the Image of” – Nayana Nair

I am not talking about
enhancing my likability here.
But just to be taken seriously
I need to like certain things,
I need to act certain way.
I need to fill forms
whenever I meet someone new,
whenever I meet them again.

Am I capable? Am I an intellectual (of the right kind)?
Am I still childish?
Am I still unable to follow the conversation
that is not spoken in the language I follow?
Am I still reluctant to give up on all the things
that are no longer relevant.
Am I now ready to listen and only listen
to take in
the version of a world that is more widely accepted.
Am I finally aligned with the opinions, interests
and common hatred that bonds us?
Have I grown weak and weary
of the silence that I am put through?
Have I realized what I could do, whom all I can befriend
if I break myself in image of my oppressor?

“Switched On” – Nayana Nair

As the light and the life of the streets
are switched on,
I wait for your knock on my door,
my heart going on imaginative trips
to the hell of not knowing.
Not knowing
with whom you might fall in love,
where you might find another broken human to pet,
in what form will that person appear
who would hold your rain for a moment
while you fix your smile.
This interesting world scares me,
where everyone and everything is better than me.

“Murky Waters” – Nayana Nair

As I drop one stone after other
into the murky waters
with dust that never settles.
I find sounds in the air, forming words
which were almost lost under the blankets of pain.
I do not try to find the one who
cried out these words.
I just add them to the stones
that are destined
to be overlooked, buried or drowned.
I throw the stones that must be thrown.
So that this dirt, that my heart
never settles.
So that these sorrows can find
a home and a reason
to grow old and die.

“Settling dust of memories” – Nayana Nair

My past
bleeds slowly onto my clothes,
onto the furniture,
on the buttons of elevator,
on the currency that leaves my hand,
on the roads I drag myself through everyday.
And they do not get lost
only because they leave my mind.
They are forever in front of my eyes
forming a layer of sadness on my daily life.
So that I do not forget
what all I have lost, what all I have suffered
to reach this point in life
where I can really smile.
I think it is another me,
the one who only knew the worse of world
who fears she will be forgotten,
so she doesn’t want to leave.

“Slowly, Regretfully” – Nayana Nair

I am dissolving in the
ocean that has no water
but only salt.
The salt
that is more closer to this earth
than I am.

I am changing slowly, regretfully,
into a form of your liking.
A form
that feels more belonging in this world
than I ever will.

My heart slips slowly
into the darkness inside.
A darkness
which feels more like home,
more like the freedom
that light had promised.