“prompts” – Nayana Nair

.

i think of parasols.
i think of wearing my miniature body made of colorful frills,
holding my own soft innocence,
not like something that can be and will be lost
but like something that will never be destroyed,
like something one never gives a second thought about.
i think of never knowing fatigue, never resting.
my skin only knowing the sun.
i think of classrooms fitted with water coolers
i think of home and its beautiful cold floor
i think of places i knew i could always return to
once i was done with my playing, once i felt my hunger.
i think of the time that i lived not knowing not understanding
the appeal or the need of shadows.

i think of stones.
their small happy weight in my hands.
the deftness of my fingers and my wrist as i played.
my palm holding them together,
scattering them, collecting them.
my palm feeling the coldness of the evening,
knowing time through them.
i think of the stones that grew on the sides of broken roads
beside my source of earliest magic
-the touch-me-nots, the insects made of velvet,
and the lost fireflies.
i grew up in a broken forest
wearing stones as brittle as me.

i think of fruits.
their colors that i loved
even when i didn’t like what they were.
they tasted too mellow, too tame,
too transient to me.
their juices just carved a bit more hunger
in my stomach. my stomach that was already learning
to ask for more and more.
i carved their colors in my notebook.
i dreamt of drawing them up on my skin.
this was before i knew what a tattoo was,
before i learnt the dangers of carving things in you
that you can’t possibly love.

“Temperaments and Thoughts” – Nayana Nair

We once loved this world
more than ourselves.
Now we just like everything
only as much as our own temperaments and thoughts permit.

The oranges reminds him of view from his broken home,
the sour taste of everything that should have been beautiful.

The glowing beads fill my mind with the images of meaningless gifts,
the faces of men and friends that always fall short
even in the face if my plummeting expectations.

Going out of our way to hide
is the measure of our love somehow.
We sit across each other for every meal
and talk about things that make sense,
everything and anything that can’t cause more harm
than the things close to our heart have already done.

I feel the rustle of a world buried deep in me,
he must feel the same.
But the world that is lost and the hope that is no longer mine
can only do so little.
There is a happiness that doesn’t look enchanting.
There is a kindness that isn’t grand.
There are things only we can be for each others
even if there are thousand things we can’t.

I would have told him “I love you”
if I didn’t know how hearing these words
have only made him cry.
He lets me love within the boundary
of my temperament and thoughts,
he stands by these walls and knows why they are for.

“What I Remember (24)” – Nayana Nair

It is time to go out into the world.

It is time that I try hard to get my heart broken
and pretend that it is happening for the first time,

to claim that I trusted blindly
knowing it is not something I am capable of,

to fit my body awkwardly
in the kind of life that people call ‘life’

to find words, to practice the new lingo
that can make something about me relatable,
so that my skin soaked in a tiring tale of sadness
doesn’t make me an alien,

to fill me up again with pictures
of parks, cafes, malls, and roads filled with people
who supposedly like each other,
if not a lot,
then at least enough to not let their ailing self
ruin the perfect moment, the perfect teamwork, the perfect promise.
(Perfection that relies on someone else
doesn’t sit well with me.)

It is time I find something new
that I cannot be or cannot have
before I lock myself up again
for next hundred heart years.

So while I am out to find something to write about and hurt about
miss me my cell,
pray for me.
I am afraid that once I am surrounded by all
that I have learned not to want,
I might start to hope again.
I might slip again.
I might forget to see the distance that I carry in me
and get disappointed by the doors that I can’t reach.

“What I Remember (22)” – Nayana Nair

Was it 5 years ago, or 6
that we all sat together
looking at the bright beginning
of another series of setbacks
that we were becoming.
The coldness of the wood,
the ruffle of papers, the moment before
we learned to truly hate ourselves.

I miss that.

As we stood waiting in line
for something to take away
everything we were just beginning to see,
I remember thinking,
“I wish I could spend my youth here.
In this moment, with these people.
I am nothing to them, they are nothing to me.
But we are good for each other.
This can never be made again.”
At that moment I knew
they will make my heart ache
for a long time.

In the years that followed
I saw them,
the people who carried the faces
of the ones
I liked enough not to love.
“What’s wrong?” I wanted to ask them
but all I could do was smile
and let my smile tell them
“I will see you for what you were.
At least that I can do for you.
The beauty of your innocence and hope
I will remember it forever.”

“Come home” – Nayana Nair

Come home
and lie that you know
how to miss me.
Pass me by a thousand time
in these small rooms,
none which feel like the home I wanted.
Once you told me that the issue is
that I want a lot of things, that I want too much.
That wanting doesn’t suit someone like me.
I find the person I am not in everything you like,
everything that makes you loose control,
everything that forces you to make mistakes.
When I cried the first time,
you told me that you can’t help
that your heart doesn’t say my name.
You told me as an assurance
that your heart doesn’t know love for anyone else either.
I am a person like that, who hoped
that you can be mine as long as you are no one else’s.
I am person like that, who stayed because no one did
and no one would.
A person who cries everyday, only to hear your assurances again,
only to hear the lies that can save my breaking love for you.

“i don’t react well to kindness” – Nayana Nair

the river behind me
is filled with regret
of swallowing the sun
that she once claimed to love.
she is like me,
so i thought she’d understand.

but she holds my hands,
refuses to give me up
when i try to find out
how much I can be filled.
she fears my temperament
and the dangerous things
i incessantly wish for.

i want to tell her
that my heart is too heavy,
that her kindness is only causing me pain,
that bleeding a bit won’t kill me,
that words won’t save me.
that her embrace would only become
my next hope, my next wound.

“When they get to know” – Nayana Nair

There was this one girl
who was too bright.
I liked her a lot.
She was a little more loud, little more caring,
laughed a little more longer.
As if that ‘little more’ was her essence,
was a rule she couldn’t break.
I liked how I could see
what she was without that ‘little more’,
that all of them would never know her like me.
I wonder at what point they will get to know,
that she is drifting away.
Would they would find her too plain,
once she stopped trying?
Would they also feel betrayed?
By then, would they have learnt
all the cruel words
that can break her,
words that she already knows.
I hope not.
I hope they are too young
to recognize the masks they see
or the masks they wear.

“Here I Am” – Nayana Nair

Just for sake of missing you,
here I am again,
at the ill-lit spaces where you used to belong.
I know all the strangers in there
the ones who used to make your heart race.
Here I am again,
trying to test myself, pushing my luck,
waiting to witness the record time
in which I will break again.
Here I am again,
wearing all the faces of me
that you never liked.
There was something about the way you hated me,
that made me become worse.
There was something about the way you loved me,
that made me become the worst.
Here I am again
to become the monster
that I have been since
I realized what it means to love you.

“feelings on the forevers that worked out” – Nayana Nair

you won’t believe this.

yesterday, coincidentally
i met the couple that always looked cute together.
the ones i thought will be together forever.
yesterday, i was sad for the first time
that they are together even after so many years.
that they made something out of their love, when we can’t.

as i smiled at them
and asked them about their wonderful life,
i didn’t feel happy at all.
i wanted to just find you and ask you
“why couldn’t you give me this happiness,
why you had to be as weak as me”.

and when they asked about you
i had to lie that you are doing well.
when they asked if we could all meet up,
i gave them my old number that no longer works.
they were so happy, that it ruined my whole day.

so yesterday was another day
when i learnt that i am not a really nice person.
i could see why you didn’t like me enough.

“Sweet Nothings” – Nayana Nair

i crawl into another embrace,
scratch the surface of my fake love
to find something true.
hopes.
hopes.
is this what they call hope?
it must be.

the coffee turns cold as my story ends.
again i am wearing a skin i have stolen.
the one breathing beside me
has a knack for sad stories recited by happy girls,
of being a knight to one he doesn’t have to save.

me,
i love drowning the world in sadness
(the only way i can take anyone’s breath away)
i love leaving loose ends,
leaving people behind-
i call it the fear of being left behind.
i have a list of similar innocent motivation
for every mess i make, for the mess i have become.

when he leaves
i throw away the coffee he never drinks.
i get over my urge to be seen for what i am.
i dip my fingers into another color
that he might like, or at least remember.