“The Remaining Beautiful Sculpture” – Nayana Nair

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The houses are all empty, the roads deserted,
the remaining beautiful sculptures,
in the overgrown lawns of this plastic world,
have no eyes and no intent to save anyone.

Someone tells me my new lines
and I nod and wait for my voice to arrive.
Someone else opens my cage and you are also
somewhat released from your prison.
We walk the small distance of this model road,
revising the conditions of our freedom in our head.

You hold my hand and it feels like nothing.
How perfect. How hollow.
But soon the sun will rise and fill us with light.
Soon it would all be beautiful.
I almost wanted tell you,
“this emptiness is such a beautiful catalyst
for reckless beginnings”. But I guess you already knew.

As we all wait for the sun,
you tell me you have a name and I nodded.
I realized I could not say the same about myself anymore.
I realized much later that you never told what it is, your name.
A name is such a hollow thing, to be filled up by the person only later.
I don’t know the order of importance of things in this world.
So I guess this must be normal.

As the sun came out of hiding, I was filled with words again
and the words that I wrote in that first light was,
“we both could write poems that can break worlds.
we could be so much more than this. and maybe we are.
maybe we want to be something less. something simple.
something harmless. but is that even possible?“

As I wondered what your real words looked like,
I uttered the words I was told to,

“the houses are all empty, the roads deserted,
the remaining beautiful sculptures ,
in the overgrown lawns of this plastic world,
have no eyes and no intent to save anyone.
i won’t save you. i will be just like others.
i will look at you and wonder. i will smile and forget.
i will love and forget.
but i will remember you in your crudest form.
you will exist in my vocabulary like waves and perfumes
and home and roads. but you will remain.
i will make sure of it.“

And with all the conviction and gratitude you replied,

“that is enough. i can be saved just by that.“

I believed you so much in that moment
that I wanted to mean every word I spoke
and maybe that was the moment my love was born
for you.

“Dreams come true” – Nayana Nair

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sometimes i dream of emptiness – it looks festive and grand,
it looks like people rushing in
with their wants and talks about wants
and talks about not having their name in any list of wants
and talks about wants that they saw the other say
that they just couldn’t wrap their heads around
and talks about wants that didn’t last that long
and talks about wants that don’t seem to die
and someone wanting to burn some wants
cause they just can’t stand them, cause they just can’t stand
a world that is not filled with their lookalikes
and someone wanting to become a 24×7 monsoon,
so that such an anarchic want can never see any fruit
and then 100 people enter a room which only has room for 10
they are torn between killing other 90 or making the room bigger
by bulldozing the rooms around,
some have already started to eat less and breathe less
and want less so that they take up less space, cause nothing seems to be working,
they sometimes talk about wanting back the past, wanting back the limbs and heart
that, they realized too late, won’t grow back
and the room is now bigger where 100 people are now 10000 people
and the other rooms and other worlds
are now floors the people with better and certified normal wants walk upon
and some keep digging for the ones that are buried, for the ones that still can be saved,
they keep getting arrested and get locked up in cells that have always room for more
and things like that just keep happening-
hurtful things, beautiful hurtful things, ugly hurtful things.
and my eyes see only wants and hurts
and i am not sure
if it is a good thing or a bad thing
that i can’t see another human in sight.

“Dissociate” – Nayana Nair

my other head
bleeds and falls off
as does my bloody knife

i can no longer call myself a victim of life
now that my sin is set in stone

few more hours for the sun to rise
few more hours i must bear the company of my face
in few more hours the world will love me
now that i look like them and kill like them
they will surely love me
for having one less brain and one less mouth

my eyes look back at me
not accusingly but with pity
of what have i done to myself
but i dare not cry
and act as if i am the one being wronged
my tears- i’ll be burying them under the red petunias
that you loved

my hearts beats furiously
as if running towards something, perhaps an end
end of me? end of her?
it feels wrong saying “her”, “you”
as if a knife is all it takes to set things conveniently wrong

i close the door and leave my open mouth
and questioning eyes on the kitchen table
i break a nail and break my heart
as i dig two graves for myself

“Sense of Urgency” – Nayana Nair

Today I realized
what to call all that I have been reading for so long.
A person I didn’t mean to overhear called it ‘a sense of urgency’-
the desire to save this world as soon as possible.

It seems the enemies are too many.
I saw many names in the list of these enemies
that I silently agreed with-
pollution, dictatorship, bullying,
monetization of education, competing in a rigged world,
oppression of lives and loves of minority, hate crimes,…

I scoffed at some:
the collapse of society in the hands of socially withdrawn,
collapse of economy in the hands of those who want and do less,
the unfeeling and unapologetic generation that seems to love depression,
women whose learning and thinking too much only breaks families,…

“this is the cause worth dying for”-
I suddenly became afraid of that feeling.

As I read all the absurd causes I couldn’t agree with.
As I read and became exasperated at the words of those
who were convinced that they knew better
even as they killed and killed and killed
and got addicted to seeing blood dissolving in oceans.
I realized
how dangerous this feeling could be.

“this is what to means to change the world.
to change the world
is to walk over everything I don’t want to see”
My sense of urgency hated me for thinking this.
It recited every quote about silence of good men.
But all I could now see was the line that I must not cross,
the words I must not say, the knife that I must never hold-
no matter the cause.

“Counting the Pieces Left” – Nayana Nair

shadows of evening
are still in my room
the morning rays,
the flickering light bulb,
your laughter,
they don’t do much.

cause this life
of mirrored sunshines and smiles
makes me feel nothing.
there is something wrong with my heart
which you might have known all along.

i toss another piece of me
into the ocean.
it is one other piece of me
that you will never see, will never have again.
you hold my hand and tell me
what i have thrown away
was too difficult to find in this world,
that it was your most favorite thing about me.

i want to cry and apologize to you
but i sit there feeling relieved
now that I have one less thing to lose.
there is something wrong with me
to not want your kindness and your love.
it is not your fault dear.

“As Little as Possible” – Nayana Nair

the broken have found love again.

again they will forget all
that they promised they would never forget.

they talk of hobbies, talk of news,
talk of things that are easy to agree upon.
they talk about breaking down walls at lunch
and stay awake at night
getting rid of every part of themselves
that could spoil this love.

they tell themselves that this time
they will want less, expect lesser,
and love as little as possible
they try to love with their masks on
hoping that it would be easier,
but knowing all the while that it won’t be.

“Greater Good” – Nayana Nair

The trees are alive today.
They ask me to sing them to sleep for the last time.
I sing for hours
but they refuse to close their eyes.

They ask me how I have been,
not waiting for my answer,
in one breath they ask
about the words they don’t understand,
ask me about the days I do not remember anything about
(there are so many days I have no memory of
while I can’t forget the days I really want to forget),
about the rain that has left us long ago.

Their love for this world that they do not understand-
makes me jealous,
makes me wonder,
if I could love also this world as much as I want to
if I knew a little less,
if I gave up this human heart
that knows nothing but to steal and plead,
to take away and bleed.
But if I knew how to give up myself
for my greater good,
I would have done so long ago.

I can only stay selfish,
act better than what I am,
sing songs to the trees
that will soon be killed for my sake.

“Temperature of this world” – Nayana Nair

all the folded boats
spill out of my empty books.

the trees are on fire again.
my mind is on a another wild chase.

my hands light some more branches.
“the world is too cold for me”,
is all that i can say.

today, i am less sad than yesterday,
which makes everything that much more difficult.

today my sorrows have become facts.
my childhood reduced to folded boats in a trash can.

is there any other way to live than this?

“Wilted dreams of our heart” – Nayana Nair

we keep walking through these roads
lined with trees of wilted dreams,
laden with fruits
of all the happiness that we do not want.

our hearts are narrow cells
capable of far less than we think of,
but always wanting more than what it can hold.
our greed is not a monster,
but a pitiful child who has lost too much,
who refuses to give up anything anymore.

we wait for this child
to stop wanting,
to stop crying,
to stop hiding,
to stop hoping.
we wait for this road to end.
we wait to be abandoned by this child
whom we have let down too many times.

“I am sad, bitter, and in love” – Nayana Nair

I look at you and I see myself.
I see my weakness, that is you.
I see my failure, that is you.
But if I put it like this
it may seem that you are
just another darkness in my life,
but you are not.
There is a reason that even when my mouth recites
sad stories and bitter words about you
my eyes, my heart only looks for you.
There is a kindness in you
a love in you, for me,
that surfaces, even when you try to hide it.

In your imperfections
I see the imperfections of my own love,
how I cannot love all of you
even when I want to.
I wish sometimes
I was not this person that I am.
Sometimes I wish you were a little less lovely,
a little less lovable.
Maybe then it would have been easier,
been okay,
to walk over this love
that I cannot let go of now.