“The list only grows longer” – Nayana Nair

.

I light lamps, sow seeds of lighthouses
in gratitude for this weak flesh
that can build itself anew, in spite of the nights
when all the warmth in the world evades it.
I chant the names that don’t belong on my lips
with boundless grace and bitterness and longing
and not die from the memory of having lived.
I sit content and complete
knowing my breaking cannot forever stay in me.
I smile with relief,
knowing nothing would hurt as it should, as it does.
I write another poem of love,
knowing nothing I love will be loved well enough.
I look back at our old odd selves and find the heart to smile
knowing that the list of “beasts and wonders extinct” – only grows longer.

“Before we are set in stone” – Nayana Nair

She stood ten steps away from me.
Smiling the sort of smile
I thought I would never see again.
The leaves and their shadows,
the broken light
only for us tonight.
I remember the how I loved her
as the wind rushes to hold her.
She, the mast of our broken ship,
asks me how I have been.

My fingers that ache for hers
hide behind me.
This is the answer that she wants
The simple answer
that can be nothing more than longing.
Longing is all I can feel, that’s how I create one incomplete world after another.
Longings are my wings that break me apart,
are my roads to run away.

My longings have so often been her dark room,
the flash that sees her cry,
her weary thin heart spread on mine,
her food and wrist going cold.

Ten steps away
I told her goodbye
when I could have told her prettier words –
words she would eventually lose faith in.
How tragic it would be.
So before the leaves could fall and dissolve on her shoulder,
make her yet another victim of hope.
Before we are set in stone.
I knew I must make my exit.
She is beautiful
I hope she remains so.
I hope I forget her again,
I hope this time it is easier.

“that’s so us” – Nayana Nair

the rains of these kind
that starts with loss and longing
that won’t slow down
won’t shut up
these rains are so much like me
so much like you
indifferent and cruel
i have found another song today
that somehow floats
above the static of this world
i have found another shelter
that fools me into believing
that my sadness is something i can run from
that we will stop belonging to each other
just because we decided to

“White Eternity” – Nayana Nair

The gentle snow,
my longing eyes,
your beautiful smile-
all against the landscape lost in eternal white.

All these are no longer my precious memory of my everlasting love.
I do not remember when you became this person
who capable to such harm and such deceit.
It is a shame that the you from long ago
is only alive in my heart.
And though I do not want to do this
but I can’t keep you in my heart any longer.
I want to forget you
the way you have forgotten me.
I want to let go of this memory of perfect love
that no longer exists.
I can’t keep dragging you to where you do not belong.
I can’t bear to look at you expecting every minute
for a change in your heart.
I can’t depend on you to become what you once were
and I am letting go of you
not with disappointment
but because
I have seen too much of what you are capable of
that I can no longer be the girl
with innocent eyes and longing heart
even if you return to what you were.
So I finally quit being your dream
as you have stopped being mine.

But I know
our silhouettes still walk in the white eternity together
even if we resent them for that,
even if we forget them.

“Another fracture in the world” – Nayana Nair

The light over him
has seen his wrist caught in emotion
waiting for words to come and rescue this body
that is defeated by passing time,
that leaves it behind
in the memory it wants,
memory it hates,
the memory
that drains the blue from the night
and fills this breaking cracking world
with the longing he cannot name.

“All I Can Do” – Nayana Nair

If all I can do
is to write up my pain
that will fill itself every morning again.
And hide the evidence of my weakness
on pages
that burn with longing for the fading ink,
the ink that longs to see
those eyes from whom they were meant to hide.
Then I am just moving my feelings
from one dark cage to another.
They continue to grasp for air,
even if the hands that choke them have changed.