“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.

“i don’t react well to kindness” – Nayana Nair

the river behind me
is filled with regret
of swallowing the sun
that she once claimed to love.
she is like me,
so i thought she’d understand.

but she holds my hands,
refuses to give me up
when i try to find out
how much I can be filled.
she fears my temperament
and the dangerous things
i incessantly wish for.

i want to tell her
that my heart is too heavy,
that her kindness is only causing me pain,
that bleeding a bit won’t kill me,
that words won’t save me.
that her embrace would only become
my next hope, my next wound.

“I am not mistaken. I know it doesn’t hurt you.” – Nayana Nair

I wish for once to be unstable enough,
to lose it for once,
to kill every part of me that wants to take your name
every minute of the day,
to throw away this shit that you have
engraved me into-
into your bigger plans, into your list of exes,
into the list of girls who would never be good enough for you,
into the the stories you would prepare in advance for you next girl,
stories with my name,
into the list of people you block and regularly check on
just to ensure they do not find happiness without you.
I want to do something other that to be bothered by your existence,
to be obsessed of my role and use in your life,
that is now separate from mine.
I want to be myself for once, than to be just another girl
whom you no longer want.

“my dying love for lemonades and other similar things” – Nayana Nair

In my wardrobe
I have hidden skeletons of you and me
from last year, from the year before,
even the year that never was (as per your memory).

When my head aches from the mention of all the light
I am supposed to see in life

(according to the countless articles on positive thinking),

when I have had enough, but can’t mention it
on the face of well-meaning people

(the handbook of gratitude tells me I should forgive
everything that is done by well meaning folks-
I mean EVERYTHING, have you heard anything more preposterous)

when all the scenarios I used to complain about
become my best case scenario

(it feels like every inch in my home
is occupied with people that I am told not to hate
phew! - you know how forgiveness is not exactly my thing)

when I fail at acting fine, as you taught me to-

I sit among those skeletons
have no care about being with the clothes
that they will never get to wear,
who don’t have a heart to be ruined by.

I try to find comfort
in the thought, in the fact
that an year from now
I will be here,
that I will be the part
that dies by the next spring.

I won’t have to live on to become the part of me
that would hate lemonades, love and laughs.

“Calling” – Nayana Nair

my heart-
i wish for its sake
that i don’t make it through this sadness.
for its sake i don’t want to forget nor forgive.
anyway, the next love
will just be the same story with new actors.
except me.
me-
like always i would give myself up
for lives of those who are better than me
and put my heart on a pedestal for caring too much.

i have a calling it seems-
of turning humans into weapons,
of advertising myself as an ideal victim,
of creating pain with numb hands
of making this pain immortal, an absolute.
this pain
that won’t even destroy me properly.

“Moments with a Cold Sun” – Nayana Nair

With each day crossed out.
With each dresses, each mask added to the my wardrobe.
With each hand that passed into mine,
with each hand that moved onto the next too easily,
I realized I knew how to dance to this tune
that used to frighten me once.

Another stranger,
another potential lover,
another sun that has already grown cold,
whispers in my ears – words I do understand.

I search for a harmless smile in my bag.
I hang it carefully on my face.
I turn myself into a gift,
into a substitute of love
for this person –
who is dying like me,
waiting like me,
for something, anything
to fill the time left.

“What I Remember (13)” – Nayana Nair

i did all that i must do
and now no one asks me what’s next.
thankfully,
no one burdens me with with their dreams anymore.
i am no longer a possible candidate for the worst,
for taking over the misfortune of my mother’s life.
i no longer have to worry about hurting my parents by
being like them or living like them.
thankfully,
what bothers me, what eats me up
is nothing that would keep anyone else awake
and that is important.

in spite of this emptiness i write about
and this loneliness that seems bigger than this world,
all this do not stop me
from laughing at jokes, craving for food that i shouldn’t eat,
dreaming of another broken love with my only lover,
from having a good time – that i will conveniently forget.
nothing i cry about, no ailing that lives in me
is too large to stop me from living.

i guess i carry an instability in my genes.
if my eyes are in the color of sadness,
i guess i got it from my parents.
and they are lovely people who somehow raised me right
in spite of having a tendency to mess up things
and their sadness with life.

tomorrow i will probably hate them frequently again
but they will nag at me when i reach home drenched in rain,
will tell me sit straight and force me to eat what will keep me alive,
will ask me to keep my phone down,
and sleep a little bit more.

they will not ask what’s wrong and that will disappoint me,
but they will let me do what i want to do (sometimes)
and they will try their best not to wrong me.
they will wish for my happiness,
even if they have no idea what makes me happy
and that is important.

because though i lived my extended teenage
believing that i had no one,
but it was not true.
i saw no one
and it is my fault.
even when i thought i was not loved
they have loved me silently.
though it was a tiring love,
it knew no end.

“Worse than Imperfect” – Nayana Nair

You were the most imperfect person I ever met
and have made me believe that I am worse.

Or maybe I saw too much of you.
so much
that you made me feel sick of you,
sick of myself,
and sick of whatever they call love.

You stumbled around
walking over my feelings,
drunk on your pride
and your sense of entitlement,
threw away what I treasured
because obviously you knew better,
called me insane
called me names
when I called you out on your hypocrisy.

Waking up next morning
expecting understanding,
expecting obedience,
expecting another day of a convenient love
with this inconvenient woman.
One day, that day won’t come.

Bitter Wind

“Forsythia“, Billy Collins

I would rather not look around the next
corner of the year to see how this will die,
its light going out,
its bare, arching branches
waving like whips in the bitter wind.

So I sit facing the past,
letting my feet dangle over the wall,
beating time against stone with my heels,
as the the long gray clouds roll over me.

“Divide in Two” – Nayana Nair

This day of unimportant advancement
will probably be the one that we will first forget.
Our hearts will pretend to be sad
to have forgotten all such beautiful harmless days.
We move into the next coming second,
dividing ourself in two.
The one left in past
always has the best,
always suffered the worst,
always surrounded by enviable beauty,
always the hero, the victim, the matyr.
While we go on forward selfishly
only taking what we really are.
Selfishly leaving the parts of us
that can be made glorious
only because if they are left behind.