“The ocean is so huge and weird” – Nayana Nair

.

I drew her shadow on sand.

She stood still, her tiny shoulders
and ribs (that thankfully can no longer be seen)
moved gently with each breath.
Each tiny breath
like the wave that swept in,
like her laughter used to be.
She looks at me and asks if it is done.
I nod. I meant to say “almost”.
Just like I had meant to say “stop”,
or “please don’t” or “take me and spare her”.
She doesn’t wait for my answers anymore.
She skips over the boundaries of our shadows.

Her outline of me drawn in shaky fingers,
looks like a human being pulled apart
beside her own shadow – a child, complete and perfect.
But she looks at her shadow and calls it weird,
just like how she called the ocean weird.

For her
the smiling children in the glossy magazine were weird,
a chocolate bar without an occasion. without a reason were weird,
the memories of home she wanted to forget were weird,
the days she walked to school with her friend
and the days the sun went down as she slept over the
struggles of homework were weird.
She sat down and tried to come up with an answer for my “why”.

“the ocean is so huge.
as huge as, all the things i can’t have
but once i had them. it is weird.

it is weird how this ocean is mine now,
the breeze is mine along with the sky
but i don’t want them.

you have memorized my shadow.
you keep bringing me back to life
but you tear up so easily as if even you don’t believe yourself.
as if you don’t believe in me .

sometimes i feel that this ocean is our gift to each other,
it is our heart free of our bodies.
sometimes i believe that i am here and you are here
and the world where my head can rest in your lap
still exists.”

“Getting Rid of Roads” – Nayana Nair

I wish I could keep it all,
that I didn’t have to get rid of
the roads that won’t take me anywhere.

All the beginnings
that won’t see an end,
I wish I could hold onto them.

If only my heart was huge enough
to keep every feeling that I do not need anymore,
I wouldn’t have to abandon the sky I can’t fly in.

“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.

“For Your Smile” – Nayana Nair

There were far too many things
that I needed to undo
just so I can be someone
who could give you the same joy that
you gave away way to easily
to someone like me.

–

You were so bright
without me.
Your smiles were so huge
when you were far.
That I had to be blind
to not know that I was not made for you.

–

But you were so kind in your love for me,
kind even in your suffering
that the scent of your spring
still lingers in me.

–

It is sad
that I couldn’t give my heart to you.
It is sad
that I am better at giving up than you,
that you are better in finding happiness anywhere you go,
that we change so easily
even when we don’t want to,
even when we believed we won’t.

“Sooner or Later” – Nayana Nair

My weakness must have been ugly to look at,
but the only thing I knew I could do
was to take this pain
and name it after you.
I hoped sooner or later
I would grow strong enough.
But in my calculation of sooner or later,
in my desperation and greed
to save you and myself,
my understanding of you,
and of what this world does to you
fell short.
My love was too huge to be carried
in a skin as weak as mine.
This is not the love
that I meant to give you.
This is not the life
you’re meant to live.

“Inside our bones” – Nayana Nair

The cup of emptiness that we want to taste
but we never make.
That blue winter inside our bones.
It is not empty nor cold.
It if full of all our fears.
It has face of all we have lost
and all that can be lost.
And it grows everyday
by huge proportions.
It grows as much
as we grow small.

“Days and Nights” – Nayana Nair

I see you there
on the terrace of a house
that I must imagine,
for I have never seen it
in all the years we have been together-
your house-
that sits on the same piece of land as mine.
The roads,
the night,
the days-that separate us.
The words that fill
this huge space between us
little by little.
Trying to bring me closer to you,
these words day by day
fill this city to its brim.
Till I hear your heart
from miles away.
But I feel you are not mine
As your words, like poison
eat away my love.
I miss those streets, the nights.
I miss the days
when there was more to this world,
than you.