“I feel all this will outlast my fading soul” – Nayana Nair

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A new patchwork of needles
is slowly put in place as my fearful flesh learns
to rely than to hide,
only to know pain
in new ways and measures.
Yet so much of myself
I dismantle and destroy to give you
the luxury of warmth
that I can’t really afford.
With you
every part of me is lit up with pain.
Though it was not the kind of light I craved for
but it is still the light that somehow suits me well.
I probably knew too little of me, too little of love
before I pledged my heart and breath to you.
Just like I am learning everyday
how love is never enough to dull any pain;
I am also made aware
how love is still the best place to lose oneself,
to bury this flesh with kindness.

“What I Remember (30)” – Nayana Nair

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The “sweet escape” is now more expensive
and better hidden in a packaging devoid of bubble wrap
and crumpled newspaper (how does that even work?)
I can no longer remember why it caught my eyes.
But such things normally do, so I don’t question it much.
“Such things” almost always refers
to things that I will always see and be drawn to, but never get near.
And I am not talking about the bare minimum semblance of love,
or the friend who must eat food without me to feel accepted in this world.
Now that is out of the way,
we can all imagine with utmost accuracy and pity
everything that is definitely on this list of mine.
Things I know the price of
because my pockets are empty.
The kind of empty a drop of dew feels
in front of a desert(even the smallest one).
This is not even a smallness fueled by insecurity or class consciousness.
This is the lens of pure objectivity at work,
which I sort of stupidly relied on to cure me, stop me
from showering my attention
to something that challenges my place in world
in the wake of release of a random new replaceable product in market.
which is sort of weird because
I do not know the price of the meal I eat
or the clothes I wear –
I feel them.
So I know better. I really do.
But the billboards that fly over the cities
-abducting cows, and UFOs, and fixed deposits, and basic sanity-
make me want to dial the number to someone, anyone
who can get me a card
that, I am told, can get me every luxury I do not yet deserve.
To my credit, I never dialed that number
simply because wanting something that was designed to be wanted
seemed stupid,
poking a hole into the balloon of my existence for it
seemed stupid.
In the list of more stupid things I can now “not want”
are grand expectations of a basic acceptable life, minimum respect,
of love, of family, of wanting a fair chance at a dream,
of food that tastes like food,
and air that doesn’t clog my lungs.
I am told that at a price one can have them all
but to the one who is barely afloat it sure is a stupid thing to want.

“Wait for the World” – Nayana Nair

The world never was a lonely place.
I was just born with a weak heart.
I never grew out of my weakness.
I waited for the world to become more mellow and kind.
I wished for the luxury that no one else has.

“LET’S” – Nayana Nair

Let’s sit in the crowded, tightly packed train.

with people we are partially curious and partially indifferent about.

Let’s be stripped of all luxuries money can afford.

Let’s for once force ourselves into suffering for few hours.

Let our legs hurt from sitting for hours,

and sleep rest on our eyelids, but never reach our eye.

Let’s witness the sun set on a land

we will never set foot on.

Let’s look at small hills

and wonder at the enormity of mountains

we have never seen.

Let’s get bored to death.

Let’s have no other way of amusing ourselves

than too look inside,

go though of what all we have hidden,

what we wanted to avoid.

Pull out each buried emotion and secret.

And when the trunk is almost empty.

Let’s find the happiness we have been looking for.

Let’s be at peace for a moment.