“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.

“Virtual Image” – Nayana Nair

“the image in mirror is never formed“

I copied this slowly
from my friend’s notes,
reading too much into it.

I moved my hands
over the new definition of real.

I traced the lines, the dull path of light
as faithfully as I could
but the solid blue lines of ink touch the glass
and are broken cleanly by the laws of reflection, every time.

Only I am left in this world of real stuff
tracing back the path
that only their changed selves could have taken.

But what difference does that make?
People who have changed
do they even want those old dreams?

Probably not, for all I see are points abandoned,
in the world of unpublished fiction
surrounded by crosses of dotted lines,
like the ones that are meant to be torn slowly.

“the image in mirror is never formed“

But it is there, in front of me.
By some miracle they exist
even when they don’t.

Doesn’t that count as real?

The emptiness in me
and in it your face.

Doesn’t that count as real?

“Redraw” – Nayana Nair

Every time I held your hand, I felt it.
Your blood, your voice, your mind
taking a step back,
a silent declaration,
“I can only love you this much”.

~

I stood on the lines I am not meant to cross.
I shifted uncomfortably from one leg to another,
afraid what my next step could do to your heart.
Wondering how much of this distance
is due to my insignificance?
How much of its reason roots in your fears?

~

I hope I knew how to fix things
that are not broken.
I wish I knew how to erase and redraw
our painfully distant orbits.

“Wrong Way” – Nayana Nair

They forgot to teach me
the most basic thing-
to know which side I should take
to keep a check on papers, to see sense
when someone tells me what is politically right
and to agree when they tell me that identity is everything
not only mine, but of all those who live on same piece of land as me.
They forgot to tell me to fight and argue
in the name of and for the sake of people
who didn’t care about the fight,
who were fine living the way they did.
I ended up believing
that I could just exist without belonging to any shore
and maybe make my own
and pray that no one joins me
and turn my life into something to live by.

How could they have overlooked this ,
didn’t they foresee how I would sit awkwardly
midst strangers and have nothing to say
about how the world was run.
Would they consider me silly,
would they think that I am shallow
if I was thinking about the fictional character from a story
and his conflicts?
Would they judge me if the story in question was not about
wars, rivalry or mid-life crisis
but one of romantic ones with cheesy lines
that everyone seems to detest?
They should have told me to memorize lines from papers
and opinion columns
and pass it as my own,
when I was not interested to form opinions
on topics that seemed to be of grave importance to others.
I should know better than to write poems on love and sadness
when people are dying around me.
But I don’t.

I think I may have been brought up the wrong way
and there is nothing I can do about it now.
But I am not even sure whether
I want to fix the things
that I asked to feel ashamed of.

“Escaping My End” – Nayana Nair

I try to take out this poison
of my thoughts
drop by drop from my blood.
My blood, that doesn’t want to be red.
My thoughts, that don’t want to be rational.
My pain, that doesn’t want to dull.
And the more papers I fill,
the more I am convinced
there is no other way I could live.
That I am surely escaping my end
by keeping my sobs on different lines,
on different pages.
By dividing the oceans, the sorrows
that were intent on drowning me.

“Spilling the Ink” – Nayana Nair

You ask why I don’t stay and fight.
You ask if I realise that
I can win as much as others.
I tell you that everyone has a dream.
And what I get by staying and fighting,
are not my dream.
That I cannot live in this world
of regulated self-expression.
Always fearing when I would spill out of the lines.
So even if my broken is not as shabby and scattered.
Even if my madness is not the sort
that can get admiration.
Even if my hands struggle with holding myself where I am.
Just know that I leave,
not because of aversion to this world,
nor to find a better place.
I leave cause I cannot breathe in water
even if I want to.

“How many more lines” – Nayana Nair

How many more lines should I write
for you to actually see
the happiness that creates ripples
under my skin at your smile.
The sadness that leaves marks
on my wrist,
on my neck,
at the end of everyday.
And the comfort of your presence
in whose warmth
my ever-flowing tears
find fingertips
that can hold and embrace them.
I carry a love in my heart
that can be accepted and
reciprocated by you,
but never understood.

“Frail Thread” – Nayana Nair

These lines that
connect to my heart,
pass through landscapes
devoid of human presence.
This frail thread
passes through valley of flowers
that have no color.
Through balconies overlooking
desolate streets and
sky crowded with stars.
Through stairs leading to floors
that no one visits.
Through the branches of old trees
broken in the storms.
Through abandoned toys in locked rooms
with no owners.
Through the warm sheets
where I rest with my dreams.
and bring loneliness of the world
that lies beside me,
while I wonder
why do I feel so hollow inside.

“With Time” – Nayana Nair

I learnt with time
that I could write everything I had in me
and still it would not matter.
No clever lines, no rhymes I think up
can affect the life around me,
where people are indifferent
to what I do , what I say
and especially what I write.
And no matter what I do,
this distance I have from this world,
cannot be bridged my mere words.
And if it can’t be done through words,
I am convinced, it can’t be done at all.

I learnt with time
that everyone is lonely.
But only few are cursed
to remember this fact
every time they wake up
to a morning that
they never look forward to.

“Lines” -Nayana Nair

I feel two lines etched on my face.

One longer than the other.

Feeling a little more colder

each time I step out.

They will lie there,

and dry there,

but never erased.