“Once, my heart…”- Nayana Nair

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They set me down softly.
The cloth made of stars and leaves,
laid to rest on my heart.
My heart, once a gaping hungry mouth,
a volcano ready to freeze
all life, all skin that roam and breathe
within its realm. The tyrant helpless ruler
of the subjects that bleed in their sleep
as they murmur their pleas, reciting memories
it can’t bear to listen to.
My heart,
a café lit with dying songs and cheap menu,
a landscape of wrecks well-hidden.
My heart, a sceptic, now sits in a structure of wood,
with its half-written paper
on “questionable power of blood”
sprawled on its desk,
while it waits for the final burning
wearing that one warm worn-down love,
that somehow still breathes.

“Another season that pretends to be spring” – Nayana Nair

“love”

you utter this word so often
with a sadness that sounds bigger than this word,
bigger that whatever it may have given you at one time.

is this the sadness that you are trying to burn away?
does it hurt when it also burns a part of you as well,
turning whatever is left into charred surface?

is it convenient ?
to have a heart that looks nothing like it.
to mute her voice just to keep her face in your mind.
to feel her lips, her words in your every kiss.
to freeze yourself with a love that won’t breathe anymore.

“A Dying Storm” – Nayana Nair

i close all the doors
as if a storm in coming,
as if closed doors can protect me from something so huge,
as if hiding is a better option than fleeing.
‘i wish i had created more places to hide in my life’
i thought this as tried to burn all my best clothes
as if i will freeze to death otherwise
and nothing i wear, no new face i paint on myself
will deflect or reduce the hate in the eyes that look at me.
soon i had nothing to burn,
nothing to destroy.
only resentment against myself,
only a feeling of failure
continued to live in this body
growing each second, trying to push me out.

“Last Dream” – Nayana Nair

Last night
I wanted to dream of you
but I couldn’t.
The picture of you
that I had in my mind
was that of the smile
that was never yours,
just a front for the photographs
that you never wanted to be taken.

***

And all I could remember about you was
how you would move noiselessly
through my home, my mind and my memories
with a care that I didn’t have.
How your silent nods
were my greatest assurance.
How your hands were my gloves.
How you enveloped me with your presence
and burned till I forgot the freezing world.
How for a short period of my life
I was glad to be myself,
that I was the one you loved.
I wanted that lost time to be my dream,
to find you in that dream
and to tell you that you are precious to me.
So that the smiles on your photographs become real.
So that I become the reason of your beautiful smiles.

“Cold Space” – Nayana Nair

There are trails of stardust
that are possibly tears,
frozen in the cold space.
Frozen despite the sun
and thousand other burning stars.
And I am not sure
if they are yours or mine.

“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.

“Name It” -Nayana Nair

Though you have bought me happiness

that I was not looking for.

While I felt that all the world was too cold

and I would soon be part of this ice.

That my heart will freeze into

this space my life has trapped me in.

How warm was your presence

You could never know.

Though I have gone out of my way

to ensure your happiness.

And sat waiting for you.

Waiting, and not knowing , whether you’d come.

Cause there have been too many days, that you don’t.

I had to remind myself time and again

not to forget,

how to find my way back home on my own.

And when I looked at you

as if my life revolved around you.

How I hated myself for it.

Cause there is still a part of me

that is cold.

And with you, I have come to know worse things

than being cold.

Is that why I can’t name it?

Name what we have between us.

Afraid that if I utter the word ‘love’

our heart would pain a little more,

knowing what we are losing.

Afraid that this is the best life can offer us,

best what we can offer each other

And knowing each second

that this is not good enough for both of us.