“The Night Wind” – Nayana Nair

.

The light bulb blooms.
The petals of light, the tungsten
burning red and hot- invites, sings, thinks only
of the memory of wings.
The burning, the bodies and their count,
the trivial data, the remains of feeble lives
pile up only to be blown away by the night wind.
Far way, the plastic chairs rustle like grass,
as everyone leaves with their lips
stained and bleeding with illusions.
In the silence of the backyard,
I alone hear the wings drop like rain.
I look at my own charred and mauled self
and ridiculously, think of love, only of love.
I realize something is truly wrong
with this world that I’m caught in.

“For you to disappear”- Nayana Nair

When the wind blows
there are no branches to shake,
no windows to rattle,
no forgotten clothes to be abducted from my backyard,
no ghost songs to invite me to new nightmares.
Only your imagined face,
that looks nothing like you these days,
in these lifeless eyes
keeps flickering.
Making you almost real,
making me wonder
what is the distance in time
that I must travel,
how much should I age,
how much should my mind wither,
for you to disappear?
How many sins I should commit
so that my hands are not stained
only by your tears.

“Becoming This Person” – Nayana Nair

. When the pain hits my face
.                                                                 (those hands used to the have the softest touch)
. my skin would have broken up in the ugliest ways,
.                               if the same hands wouldn’t have rushed
.                               to cradle the crying me
.                                             without losing a second.

.                                                         The pain was gone as soon as it came.
.                           This skin has a way of healing
.                            that seems to me as
.                                                an unfaithfulness,
.                                                a betrayal.
.       As if, even my body
.       didn’t want to leave any evidence
.                           that could justify my tears and my mistrust.

. I have again invited the pain, the consequence
. of being “broken too many times”.
.                                                    The word “broken”
.                                                               seems like a shiny ornament
.                                                               that is meant to distract my eyes,
.                                                                                                                                 my eyes
.                                                                                      that are anyway not capable
.                                                                    of seeing things for what they are.

. I no longer trust my mind
.                            that doesn’t know
.                                            the reason for the anger (that I awakened in others),
.                                            the disappointments
.                                                      written in neon lights on the darkening faces,
.                                            that doesn’t have any account of how I ended up becoming
.     a person
.                            this bad,           this wrong,                 this fragile,                 this cruel.