“Weight of Snow” – Nayana Nair

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The light – yellow, diffused, and scattered – falls here everyday
on the cold marble of my home.
It is winter already, which means there must be places on earth now
where turning on taps is a useless exercise,
where a whole street wakes up early
to remove the snow piling up in them, around them,
snow continues piling far away from their settlements
where there is no need to clear them,
where the weight of snow doesn’t suffocate anyone.
There must be places now where people are forgetting things one by one.
Remembering an unreal ocean of fierce light,
forgetting ever being there.
How many places have I forgotten already?
I move two chairs into the circle of warmth
and wait for the evening cold to reach my skin,
to end this dream.
I stare at the empty chair.
I draw myself sitting there, staring,
as if I cannot live without an empty space beside me.
What was that space once?
It was something warm with skin and heart and voice.
It was light in human form, it was the most beautiful life.
But that empty chair in the sun, has been empty for so long
it couldn’t possibly have been me
who existed when it was something more than that.

“Every evidence of your existence”- Nayana Nair

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The evidence of your existence –
they sometimes sound like trapped bubbles in ice,
a song no one wants to remembers,
a song that wants to burn itself down
on the steps of justice gone wrong,
wanting to stain the white marble of temples
that do not deserve worship.

They sound like dying ambition amidst flying hopes,
a revolution coming apart,
a future with limping walk and kind careful words,
a future fleshed out with beautiful breaking and selfish hands.

You told me “selfish” is a beautiful word,
told me that in the opening sentence to the goodbye,
that I am supposed to shout after your vanishing back,
to make the word “selfish” the first word,
to speak of that word with a smile.
And let the world wonder why you wanted to burn the world
for what you have never known, what you couldn’t have;
to never explain your heart, to never let their magnifying glass
and their dear sun around your tearful smile.

“Lost Coin” – Nayana Nair

I wanted to tell him
that I went back to the fountain
the one made of moon marble
in the neighborhood made of coal,
and I fished for his wishes,
the forgotten cold coins,

that once I believed I could find him
in the things he left behind
and I was wrong.
I could only see the lingering complains
and the eventual hate
in the fact that he left.

But the romantic in me
just couldn’t stop
till I did the impossible,
The romantic in me has no eyes, no ears
only a tongue to ask for more.
The work of running, begging, searching
for a lost coin was left to me.

So I picked a random coin and lied
that it was his,
just like I picked him in this world of millions
and I told myself he is mine.

I wanted to to tell him
that even I was tired of my “shows of love”
which played one lie after another
till someone broke.
But I guess he knows already.

“Momentary World”- Nayana Nair

Wave after wave of blue marble
swept me up to a newer height.
I saw a sunset over avalanches
frozen and melting.
I saw the planes of memory
flying in a windless sky.
I walked through the garden
of trees laden with fruits of snow.
I came to love the momentary world
of the songs
that you often hum.