“Pendulums and Spirit Animals” – Nayana Nair

In my beautiful dreams
I run to you, as if you are my body,
as if I cannot press play without your hands,
as if the world won’t come into my grasp
without your skin.

When my eyes open,
I don’t mind losing the world
if it helps me get rid of you.

An animal in me cries out your name every hour
my panic filled voice shouts back – “shut up!!!”.
I must choose, I must give up on one thing,
if I want to be something more than a lifeless
pendulum.

In a room scented with disinfectant
as I wait for my turn
I wonder if the man in white coat
will sing me something beautiful
when he puts me down for good.

“Small Impossible Dream” – Nayana Nair

Her floor had always been the color of the season
I remember this, only when I step into the mess of her life.
The spring issues lay scattered like the flowers
The pink, red, yellows, and greens,
women who only know youth,
women who only grow younger
the kind of woman she wanted to be
(what a small impossible dream)
and she almost is.
And now that she can never change
would she be happy?
When/if she comes across her own lifeless eyes in the missing posters
would she be glad to be one of the “sad popular”?
I shatter the home of her missing goldfish
in my haste efforts to pick them up
and put them out of sight- the bundles of glossy paper
that my eyes can’t handle.
I try to put them away,
wanting to throw them away
now that she wouldn’t mind, now that she won’t yell at me
or anyone for taking away too much of her.
I want to try it.
i want to try, so she has no option but to stop me.
“let’s leave her in peace” tells me my moral compass and my grief.
“i don’t want to show her the kind of respect that only dead deserve”
shouts back my anger and my love.
I drop the heaviest bag in this world on her rain soaked bed.
Her last dress, her last chocolate wrapper, her last bus ticket,
her last mistake, her last breath
everything spilling out,
everything ruining the spring that I dreamed for her along with her.

"Ports" – Nayana Nair

a blue cloudy sky over a banana plantation.
the only word to be heard – rebellion.
someone is crying far away.
another round of bullets leave the shaking hands
of the one who can’t seem to stop crying.
now he must die just like me.
he rests his bloody head and its murky thoughts on me.
in this last afternoon of my life
i drift into bouts of darkness,
without fear for first time,
with the company of only his confused memories.
will this be my last dream – his life?
even in his head my homeland and its afternoons are beautiful.
he has a face that he doesn’t want to forget,
he has childhood home he can always return to
but he didn’t, he regrets it now.
he remembers the red color that his sister
stopped wearing on her lips
once her heart was broken badly.
how he kept it with himself, as a symbol of happiness
that he can’t have only for himself.
there are ports on rainy days
and buildings that became sadder at night.
he once painted the window that would never open to him
or anyone else for that matter.
he cried when another nameless woman was found lifeless
on the last page corner of newspaper
and the window never lighted anymore.
there is a cafe filled with few bombs that didn’t go off
where the only one spared was him.
he doesn’t want to be spared anymore.
i wonder if he thinks that he can have happiness when he ends.
i wonder if i will be able to smile on a rainy day, even if i am born again.

“I have nothing of you” – Nayana Nair

I walked into troubles, into fogged minds,
into friend circles that cultivated their alter egos
on every meager piece of earth
that they otherwise couldn’t plant their feet upon.

I walked into crumbling cities, into impossible dreams,
into the lifeless replicas of your heart-
hoping you would come after me.
But as time ate me up
I just hoped that you’d remember name at the least.

I wish that you had stepped a little closer to me,
given me false hope, and broken my heart.
but I have nothing of you,
nothing to hate you for,
nothing to remember your love by,
except the empty place I made for you to stay in me
– the only part of me that makes living difficult for me.

“Hello?” – Nayana Nair

hello?
can you help me?
can you tell me which way to go,
which part of me to burn
to reach the dumping ground
where lay all the skins
that humans have ever shed?

i have been living in my dreams
for quite some time,
where i am the old-me
surrounded by my old-family,
old-friends, old-strangers.

dreams that i can no longer have,
now that i have been led back to reality,
now that i am almost sane.
i realize i am missing the life that never was.
medicated consciousness is not enough
to make me forget
all that i should not remember.

i have heard that here i would find
the lifeless skin of mine-
the ‘me’ who never knew what lacking is.
want to join me?
never mind.
i was not looking for company anyway.
thank you for not helping,
for telling me to grow up.
thank you for making reality
more disturbing than it already is for me.

“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.

“Learn” – Nayana Nair

I know
you are comfortable in your misery
to the point
that it doesn’t seem like fate
but choice
and your hands can have rest
from struggling
only if you think
you will choose this fate again.
But I also know the these resting hands
and this blinded mind are not you
and till you do not become what you are
you will always have this restlessness
that I have known all my life.
I would rather see you struggle and cry
because of the fate that doesn’t give in,
than to see you resigned and lifeless,
holding everything that you don’t want
believing that you would eventually
learn to want them.

“Promised Destiny”- Nayana Nair

This life. These people. Who can shatter

at least impact.

But I suppose we live in denial.

For I don’t think that we will

be living this life as we are

if we knew how delicate it is.

I imagine you hands and their gentle grip.

You lips, how they curl when they smile,

and how lovely the words they utter.

You skin that shudders and shivers.

I imagine all this and all that is yours

And hence it is mine.

But when you lifeless body

meets its promised destiny.

Will you still be mine?

Those eyes, that skin, those hands

without life.

And you will rot away

till you are part of this earth.

And you will be everywhere,

but still I would be alone.

Is that love?

Is it love that makes my hand tremble

at the mere thought of you not being there.

Let’s choose this love

that will be end of me, end of you.

Let’s accept the pain this love is.

Because nothing we do,

no pain that we give each other

can be worse than what we will be left with

in the end.