“I wrote it all with dread” – Nayana Nair

.

The sharp edge on your voice
brings back the glowing face of my father
talking about the descent of world
with an bright animated hatred,
his hands folding around the hilt
of an absent necessary knife,
as he ignored my own hands
tearing away at the dictionary,
gouging out some weak heart
from another chest of mine.
I wrote a song about his presence,
his looming beautiful voice,
about the ceilings of the world
that bent down to touch his blessed head.
“He will be soon gone”,
I repeated that line again and again
not knowing where to lead that feeling to.
I repeated the same pathetic show
to soothe his nerves, the same growing
of small violent flowers in his ashtrays,
as his drink swirled in the glass,
as it all devoured him slowly,
as I wrote again “soon he will be gone,
and I’ll be left behind to take his place.”

“blessed by the hands of time” – Nayana Nair

.

there.
see there.
that is the soft tree
made of sheep
from my dreams
that i told you about.
the one from which blood drips
the moment i find
the warm back of sleep.

there beside it
is the ink i never used.
the words
i couldn’t bring myself to say.
it is a cloud now.
it is now rain
or rather a promise of rain.
so it is safe.
and beautiful.
it is a reliable source for thirst.
it will stay there for an eternity.
it will only grow more.
it will probably
be the measure of my life.

it will be there
always overlooking
this faithless temple,
these buildings
filled with hollow books,
this smoke that leaves my body
as i burn again.
overlooking this farm
blessed by the hands of time,
where all the food i couldn’t stomach,
everything of this world
that i couldn’t accept
grows back again from the soil
for me to see.

sit here beside me
i will show you the world
that i am doomed to see,
since you want to know me.
see there, all that
was there in me
before i created new doors
in this world for you.
all this will remain with me
when you are gone.
and you will be gone
you just don’t know it yet.

“Hope and Wait” – Nayana Nair

.

I looked at you for a long time
and for a long time you pretended to sleep.

For a long time
you closed your eyes,
even when tears spilled,
even when laughter almost made out.

I placed my hand in yours and waited.

I hoped even when you pretended to be stone,
pretended to be wax, pretended to be mine,
pretended to want me gone.

I hoped, I waited to held in your arms.

I hope.
I wait.
I pretend to do all this with ease.

I pretend to be a shelter
as I hunger melts my stomach,
as words melt my mouth.
I do not know what you pretend to be.
Not yet.

I wonder
if I let my eyes close,
if I chose my weakness,
if I hide,
will you take my place, place your hands in mine
and pretend to wait?

I won’t mind such lies and such pretense.

*I wonder if our lives could change
if we didn’t feel burdened
by truth and lies all the same.

“everything else” – Nayana Nair

“warm”
this word has become cold
sitting at the base of my throat
my throat burns
and my everything else?
my everything else
-my pretty flesh and my ugly insides-
who want me to be there
and at the same want me gone.
i guess they want me to change.
this is my new low
where my organs are my imaginary friends
the only ones I can talk to,
the only ones who need me,
the only ones I can disappoint,
my new friends who are learning
the weariness of living for me.
I ask around for a lover who has a love for knives
and tolerance for madness of all kinds.
I hear a hundred thousand sighs in me
when the new replacement of romance appears,
asks me my name and digs his sharp canine teeth
on the last bits of my happiness as a hello.
The hundred folded cranes look more like ravens
and the one who promises me an end is now my only hope.
Now things are easy
now that I can’t hear myself breaking
now that I have this strange loud laugh to hide behind,
this person stranger than me,
taking up the blame of everything I have done,
helping me hide from everything that I have killed in my life.

“Folds” – Nayana Nair

You are gone
and I try to hold the spoon like you used to.
I chew my food with my left molars as you did.
The ghosts that I have wronged, that I have forgotten
now include half of my teeth, teeth you would have never used.

You are gone
and you are happy (probably).
So I memorize name and phone number
of your every friend,
I recall the fondness you had for them.
I wear your feelings when I meet them,
I wear your feelings even when they won’t fit me.
I wonder if they noticed how I was spilling at some places,
how I was non existent in other folds-
folds that used to hold you so well.

You are gone
and I am gone (or that’s what I think).
I am my work, I am my songs,
I am the adjectives you made for me,
I am the report cards, I am the dust that settles on it,
I am the afternoon TV shows, I am the language I don’t understand.
I am what I am fond of.
I am mostly just you.

You are gone
and I fear
there is no one that can
stop me from growing
into you.

“The last brick is in my heart” – Nayana Nair

In every country, in every city,
on every street
stands a home that could have been ours.
I am a daydreamer like that
As I passed the house with an always crying child,
as I passed the house with the overwhelming smell of incense,
as I passed the house with singing reality shows played on repeat
I only thought of the life we could have there.
In my mind, we fit every house, we fit every role.
Even if our body was stripped of every muscles and every bone
even if we put back together the wrong way,
even if we our heart were to be rearranged,
in my mind we would still fall in love.
That is how we had molded the spirit of our love-
to be stubborn (if not right or just).
But now there are years when I don’t remember you,
and yet there is no sadness in me that is capable of ruining me.
You are gone
and I am trying to grieve for something I don’t particularly miss.
As I pass the houses where our stories used to be staged
I realize they are again the buildings of strangers
that I am supposed to keep my mind away from.
My sadness selfishly keeps uttering,
“I need to love someone, someone who won’t do this to me.
I need to love someone, to believe in love again.”
I reach home with bloody nails and bruised fingers
leaving behind bricks with our names scratched out.

“she must have been as lovely as you once were” – Nayana Nair

i happened to find a picture of yours
a blue ocean engulfing two shadows

it must have killed you
to have come back alone

to sit and imagine what she could lived like
if you were the one lost and buried in the sea

even though you are wretched and she is gone
but it is because you held her hand too tight

that you still feel her hand
slipping from yours every night

“Experiment” – Nayana Nair

The unopened letters,
the calls never picked,
the feelings cut as a bud,
the door knocks I chose to ignore-
cover my ground in color of hope.
Hope?
Yes, hope.

Like the messed up experiment
of Schrodinger’s fictional pet,
I continue to see hope
till I keep my heart closed.
Are you still there inside me?
Or are you long gone?

I do not need to know.

The replica of this world,
that exists inside my head-
it will stand, it can endure
as long as I do not know
the answers to such question.

“sugar doesn’t melt, it decomposes ” – Nayana Nair

What does a beautiful day look like?

Your smile filling my heart
with the sweetness that I hate.
The crystals of sugar, your gentle words
cover everything in the world,
like a world lost in a blizzard
all that kept me on my feet vanishes.
I breathe easier because you are here.

What does a beautiful day day look like?

There are no beautiful days dear.
There are just days that we were happy,
the days I will look back with tears in my heart,
with these weak hands that could never hold onto you.
Make me a little more happier love,
give me one more reason to be sad
when you are gone.

“seine” – Nayana Nair

Sit here and cry your eyes out.
I know you don’t want to look weak,
that you don’t want my strength
to be the only things that keeps you standing.
But if only you would cry,
if only you would let your weakness show,
I could find in myself the courage
to let you see my tears as well.

This love of mine, it is not much I know.
It cannot do anything.
It cannot stop you from closing your eyes on me.
It cannot do anything but suffer
thinking of the day you heart will forget to beat.
It terrifies me, to think you are already half gone,
that I will get to see the years that you won’t.

I want to tell you that I love you.
I want to hear back the same words, I guess.
But these words, they refuse to come out of me.
I only want to remember the moments
when you said you hated me.
I want to believe that even in this pain
your heart will be lighter
by leaving me behind.

the lights rush past us
the river drowns our image
this air that i can’t breathe
this life you can’t live
your hand that i can’t leave
all make me cry
how did i turn out to be this pitiful?