“Precious” – Nayana Nair

A pane breaks
somewhere far away.
Everyone precious to me
stays there-
this place called ‘far away’.
So these things I must record,
these things I must remember

“it could have been a stranger”,
I try to reason.
But it is of no avail.
I am afraid that the life broken just now,
must be too close to me
for my heart to bleed so,
for my hands to go limp.

The nights I read every book
on ‘how to hide this incurable pain from my family’,
they flash in front of my eyes.
That is all I see
when I dial their number and they don’t pick up.
That is all I see
when they pick the call
and tell me that they can never be ‘not fine’.
That is all I see
when I see holes in their stories,
when I see a new hole in their smile every morning.

“The End of My Sad Story” – Nayana Nair

I want to tell myself
that my sad story had ended,
that now I can write a better one,
where I won’t be suffering again.

–

But I have known myself more than anyone.
In the waters that choked me,
even when it hurt,
even when I was about to loose myself
the only thing on my mind
my only sadness was for the love I never found.

–

And there lies my failure,
there lies the source of my misfortune.
That even after everything ends,
after I have cried my last tears,
nothing would change.
I would walk into every new day
and I would only see the broken yesterday.
I would end up in front of doors
that have never opened for me.

“Hint” – Nayana Nair

Once I could call you,
call your name
without reason ,
without the anxiousness
that now haunts me
when the phone keeps ringing
or when you stay silent
as you wait for me to take the hint.

-oOo-

I am afraid of bringing up my own name in front of you.
I am afraid to talk about your absence.
I am afraid to hold your hand.
I am afraid of saying ‘I love you’ first.

-oOo-

I keep hoping
that you must have reasons
that have clouded your eyes
and numbed your feelings,
that you are looking
for a way to keep us together.
I keep hoping
even when I shouldn’t.

“Counting Losses” – Nayana Nair

I can only go as far as my muscle memory takes me.
Since my mind is not here
and I can’t leave this body
that I have never been able to accept as mine.
There is a road that lies in front of me
and there is nothing for me to do
but to walk.
You bring me back to present
and ask me where I have been.
There is a place that I left lifetimes ago,
where I am searching for the reason of my grief.
There is a sun that rises only in the heart of the lost,
there is a mist I live in that you cannot see.
I can stand at any edge and be sure I won’t fall.
I can reach out for any happiness that I am sure I can’t have
and nothing will hurt me more than that.
There are losses that I am counting,
there are bruises I must count as gain only because of love.
Every hope I find
becomes a reminder of something I have already lost.
Can you teach me-
how to go about this life,
how to get rid of this part of me
that can only love the past?

“Thorn” – Nayana Nair

You are a thorn in my heart
that only hurts, that only digs deeper
when in rare moments
I find my way to doors in my life
that can’t be opened now
and I stand helplessly in front of you
whom I no longer love.
When you utter the same words
but they sound different
and I realize that I have never been around
to notice this change.
We may walk in a present
disconnected from our feelings in past.
We are nothing to each other now.
Your sorrows are no longer due to my mistakes
and I feel nothing but relief for that.
But sometimes,
only sometimes
an unfulfilled dream breathes in me
refusing to die,
for it is happy to have you around.

“Immune to Good Advice” – Nayana Nair

When my own opinions can’t budge the doors
that are closed on my face,
I run back to these books
which list how to think, what to want.
I do not look for how it is done
I look for what I did wrong.
But my mind is so immune to a good advise
that the words that I read make me sick
even when they could be my medicine.
But I don’t yet know if they are,
cause my wish for a better life fades away
in front of the genuineness my heart demands from me.

“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.

“Map” – Nayana Nair

I lose memory of the nights
when you crept up the walls of my life.
When you planted the seeds of doubt
and made my each step wary
and my words full of fear.
One day I woke up knowing
that I was not me, but you.
I was living the second chance of your life.
I could no longer make the decisions
that I want to make.
I just had to stay clear
of all your mistakes.
That was my map.
Everything else,
even me,
seemed hazy and inconsequential
in front of your plans.
But how long can we bear
the weight that no one put on us,
that we stole from their stories and silent sobs.
How much of our life is ours?

“Who seem to know a lot” – Nayana Nair

Nothing scares me more than people
who seem to know a lot about world,
who seem to know every answer
to every problem.
Especially when the answer
is that the weight and blame of this
collapsing world
only lies on shoulder of few.
And answers mostly revolve about how
not every one is equal.
I urge those people to make their homes in these
boxes of labels that they use as weapon
against people who were just living their own life
and live their life avoiding any thing
that might break their illusion of self-righteousness.
For that is all they have.
Nothing scares me more
than a person who thinks
what he thinks is best for the world,
who thinks that emotions and lives
are disposable things,
in front of the grand plan he has
for himself and this world that only he supposedly owns.