“Telling Signs” – Nayana Nair

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“Does rust affect plastic dreams?”
I ask my teacher in my sleep.
She takes out an axe and starts cutting down
the first mouth filled with wrong answers.
Two rows away
she wipes her brows and folds her sleeves,
she takes another deep breath
before she checks the attendance sheet
and finds the next dream to kill.

She tells me I should think more and ask more
and ask the questions that help me live.
She looks at the metal that grows out of my pores
and gives me another chance.
She says only if I would try to be better
than the people I am clinging to, I could grow up to be her.
I look away from the blood that flowing down her neck,
the parts of her that she intends to kill by holding other’s breath.

“What about my mother’s arms, weak weak exhausted arms?
Are those my telling signs?
Does that mean I don’t have to worry,
that I am just someone next in line?
What about you? Do you rust like me?
Would the color of my rust, would my weakened heart
make me worth protecting,
make me deserving of kinder words?

She told me “It will not get you respect or equality,
if that’s what you are looking for.
It can sure get you love, of some kind, for some time
but it is just a matter of time
before you see the end that only you can write.
And you would end up writing it
cause that painful end would be more truer and more yours
than any love that you find by compromise.”

As she walks past me, smiling lovingly,
as she spares my life, that now she owns.
As she dissolves my only way back,
I realize too late, that my chaos and my doubts
were more hopeful than an answer like this
that promises pain to everyone else but me.

“Summer Mood” – Nayana Nair

my feet relentlessly insist
on burning themselves
for the sake of summer mood.

i wear a shirt too big for me.
a wear a smile a bit too small.
i wear the worry of my parents on my neck.

i feel their fear
when i smile back at strangers.
i pretend to be the sand that no one can hurt.
i pretend to be the sea that doesn’t end.
i pretend no man in this beautiful scene
would hurt someone like me.

but my feet, they burn, they bleed.
my feet that only wanted freedom
from the moment i was born,
now they make me feel like the mermaid
who was not wise enough.

i feel like i am losing a part of myself
every time a stranger asks for my name,
every time they accidentally touch my skin
to fill me with shame and sin.
i pretend to be cool, to be understanding,
to be blind
as i feel like the monster
that brings out the worst in people.
as i erase my memories everyday
to put faith in people whom i find hard to trust.

“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.

“Be With Me” – Nayana Nair

My pain sits on my shoulder, clings to my neck

and sings stories of years that defined me.

How it had no one else but me.

It was so fierce, yet so fragile.

I felt the urge to protect it.

From anything. From everything.

I wanted to protect it from every cure.

I wanted it to be with me. To be a part of me.

I felt I would be a little less me

if it left my body.

I didn’t mind this pain decaying my body.

I didn’t mind it’s echoing cries and lament.

I just wanted it to be there always.

But when pain decided to leave me,

I felt that life has left my body.

I cried realizing that it was never a part of me.

I don’t think I cried cause I missed pain.

I cried for there is nothing in my life I can be sure of.

Not even pain.