“no colors, no flowers for me” – Nayana Nair

.

“he left me”
this is where I would have wanted everything to end,
at “he left me”…simple and clean
and yet carrying a sadness that can be forgotten
or remembered as something that just exists.
Exists not like floods but like rain.
Exists not like a story of love
but a story that had a possibility of some meaning.
“he left me” could have existed in me, in this world,
how words of no significance and no power exist.

But it didn’t end there.
What he did was simple,
but what he didn’t do
those are the things that exists like flood, like pain
that can exist without him.
He left me a leaf
and not a flower.
And knowing this, even if I forget him,
it won’t end
the pain I feel at the sight of flowers,
the anger the green fill me with,
the feeling of being wronged
at seeing everyone who gets both, while suffering less than me.

He left me a life that I am capable of living well
but a heart that won’t ever feel at ease
as long as I live wanting love for myself.

“I’m all for sad feelings. I’m all about hard love.” – Nayana Nair

.

All I could do
was to wait
for the stone of doubt
and my rippled heart
to settle.

But my surface never knows peace
the veins of leaves, the claws of birds,
they touch me and demand an expression
and I play along. I give way to them.

I am learning giving way, giving in
is what people call love.
And the core of what I am, therefore,
doesn’t believe in love.

The tired core of me would have probably
believed in love if it was not so easy to get,
a love that was never a win-win situation,
that demanded a bit more hurt,
that asked me to see someone outside of myself.

“the giants continue to live in my dreams” – Nayana Nair

Across the street
lived the giants.
The green giants-
who waited for rains to cry,
who waited for the night to speak.

Thankfully the windows
in my temporary home
were small and few.
Thankfully it was always cold,
that awful cold
that makes you want to sleep
for a long long time.

So I slept and slept.
I ate whatever my mother cooked.
I waited for her to tell me
what I am to do with my life.
While the kids I never spoke to,
went into the home of giants
to put them on fire,
I slept.
I slept and cried in my dreams.
Because tears on my real skin
would make this sadness more real.
Real sadness demands reasons and explanation.
Real sadness demands proofs.

I slept
to dream,
to stand among them-
the ones who have learnt
how to live and die quietly,
to forgive easily.
I waited for the day
I would grow roots,
the day when I could smile
at my falling leaves.
I waited for the day
I could become one of them
and not the cruel outsider that I am now.

“Drop of Me”- Nayana Nair

A drop of me falls on your leaves,
falls from your leaves.
The rain of love
finds you again
even if it is without me.
The ground of reality
hits me again,
asking me to give you up.
It tells me that
if I wait enough,
wait long enough
I will find you.
And by finding you
only I will be ruined.

“Picture Book” – Nayana Nair

Leafing through the pages of my picture book of dreams,
he smiled to himself and said to me-
I can make all of them come true for sure,
you can fill more pages, you can dream more.
The mirror with my face
lost in the light,
lost in thought of love soon to arrive,
while I wait not knowing how to calm myself down.
Where I hold a hand that touches me
like a rare cloud he found on ground.

The roads all lighted,
the words all sweet.
Our heartfelt smiles
at the end of the reel.

 

Going through my picture book of dreams
I smile at him, for not knowing better.
Not knowing that all I want
are for these dreams to die on these pages.
Cause I see the drop of tear that
glistens in the mirror
when my love threatens to leave,
forces me again to change
asks me why I can’t get rid of this mess,
why can’t I be calm again.
Me, wondering how to act
like a gentle cloud that I am not
not wanting to be genuine,
when I get love only when I am not me.

The road all lighted
The words all sweet.
The world going silent
under my scream.

“Garden of mine” – Nayana

Love and concern
are not something that grows
naturally in my heart.
I have never known a time when they have.
Even if I have put fake flowers
in this garden of mine,
it is only for your sake.
Don’t you think I care enough
to tell you the words I can never believe.
Don’t you think my love is enough,
if it wants you to sit in the shade
of the tree I have made leaf by leaf.

“My Life” – Nayana Nair

My life like
that autumn leaf,
falls and flies
at the same time.

“Freckles” – Nayana Nair

There was once a boy
who looked at my freckles
and told me that they were
autumn leaves in winter skies.
That I am a sunset to cherish
and a storm to pet.
Who looked at my words
and told me, that
he could find all the things
he has lost in his life
in my words.
He told me
the day he loses me
he will lose much more than that.

“Flower” – Nayana Nair

I pluck one leaf at a time
from this flower, this script
my life is.
I throw them from bridges
on cold evenings.
I bury them in the soil
that soils their print with time.
I burn them to ashes,
so they won’t smell the same.
I hang them on trees
that will never bear fruits.
To leave this story of mine
everywhere and nowhere.
So that you may find it.
So that you may not find it.
But
I wear the last page, last leaf
with only one word, you name, written,
on my finger
as substitute for you hands
that I can no longer hold.

“REMINDER” – Nayana Nair

Bright light hovering over my head

Lighting me up, making me its own.

Inseparable, as if I am light itself.

The blinding brightness of my being

Leaves me incapable of finding my way

Through my own thoughts, turned strangers.

In this light, I have nothing to write

Nothing that’s mine.

And I fear these blank pages

Will be a reminder

Of a fruitless day.

The ship sitting at

The edge of my closed window.

It looks out at the wind.

The wind creating

An ever-changing mosaic

Of ruffling leaves.

It looks at the wind that belongs to it,

But never touches its lifeless white sails.

It looks for the ocean

That it was never made for.

My fears were in vain,

I have finally filled this page

With words that are reminder

Of  a fruitless life.