“Love can only be a safe haven, if we keep this distance” – Nayana Nair

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There is a kind of spell
that doesn’t let love sink into my heart.
It keeps it all suspended
between the layers
of admiration and disbelief,
of trust and that nagging doubt
that I don’t really want to think about.

Like so many, I also believed
that this love-
the shining weakness of my heart,
is safe in the growing cavity of my chest.
That, if the world doesn’t touch me
and I do my part, and never reach out
as well,
then this will be my own small forever.

It will never be hollow
till I don’t test its reality.
It will okay, till I endure
the mocking laughter in my mind
and never think about anything else.
After all, how can I lose a feeling of my making
in a world where only I exist.

But in a world where only I exist
there is also nothing to distract me,
nothing to make me forget the imaginary nature
of my meaning,
nothing else can prevent the ripping apart,
nothing to support the falling structures.
And as I guessed, as I always knew
without ever wanting to admit –
it is just one another thing
incapable of being an eternal something.

This afterimage of another soul
that I try to indulge in,
couldn’t have been anything more than this anyway.
From here, this distance,
from where I can be seen favorably and loved deeply,
this distance
where I can summon in me the spirit of sacrifice
for the idea of this one pure love that I must protect at all cost,
this distance
that gives me a chance at love.

This distance also means
that love never touches
the rocks that my tears have turned into.
It also means that
in hiding everything vicious,
I have also hidden everything that could be me.

Somehow I have learnt to be okay with the fact
that this smile that I get, the kindness I receive
is because the weed that grows on me looks more beautiful
than I can ever be.
I have already dissolved in the earth
to sustain this beautiful face that I am determined
to be remembered for.
It is too late for sincerity.
Now even my hopes have been poisoned.

“What I Remember (26)” – Nayana Nair

I covered up myself up-
hiding the pieces,
hiding the glue,
hiding the knife close to my heart.
There is too little time
and so much to be disposed,
so much has to be kept at the bottom of the stairs,
under the sheets,
under the hand that cupped my face
so that no one could say with certainty
whether I am laughing or crying or thinking
about the hands that will never touch my face again
or wondering why I can’t move away
or keep away from mines and alligators
and magma and my fearful heart and dark wells
and palaces that never sink or get ruined
completely and green roads of past and red
destinations in my hands and love for colors
that will not love me back and following the one
with tearful eyes and the thoughts of some end,
any end.
All this extravagance,
so that no one could see my see through my real feelings
being eaten up by imaginary words and scenarios.

“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.

“Funny Look” – Nayana Nair

When I speak of
what I thought my life would be like,
what I still want to be if I was not dying in my skin,
they give me a funny look as if I am seeing things.

And frankly I am seeing the only things
that give me hope.
I am aware of their imaginary status
and how separated by time they are from my life.

But I wish instead they would just smile along
as if I am a child who speaks
of ten professions in one breath
and not remind me how I am losing out in life as a woman
just because I am trying to breathe as my dream once in a while.

“One Less Lie” – Nayana Nair

There are promises that I wanted to make
but knew I could never fulfill.
The imaginary me
that lives in my head
comes up with words too beautiful to last.
So I must swallow them before they reach my lips,
before they reach you ears,
so that there will be one less person disappointed in me
when I am broken down by all that I thought was beneath me.

“Only She Knows” – Nayana Nair

She left the door ajar
and closed the curtains as she left,
like she did so many things
that I didn’t ask her to do.
Like so many things I didn’t notice.
Did I fear darkness of the room?
Did I fear drifting into sleep
no longer be sure
that this body would continue breathing?
I feared a lot.
I knew the names of imaginary insects
that crawled inside my mind.
But only she knew how to close my eyes
and close my heart
to the pain and paranoia
that only I could feel.
I woke up to curtains soaking the sunlight
and the sweet humming from next room.
And I didn’t want this humming
to go farther
than this.

“One of them” – Nayana Nair

Slowly I hear
a flood, a riot, a madness of people
rushing towards me.
Their voices turning from
gossiping whispers
to name calling.
Their anger pulling triggers
real and imaginary.
I hear a silence in the world
that looks at me
and tell me a list of things I did wrong
to deserve this.
They look for a reason to forget the existence
of people like me
whose broken pieces remind them
of their own cruelty.

And soon they run to another direction
finding someone to bully.
But many a times, one of them looks back,
helps me get back on my feet.
And now I do not know
how to hate them.
I fear my hate will make me one of them.