“Home of Blindness” – Nayana Nair

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I have to sing
and keep singing,
have to keep begging people to dance within my heart,
within the confines of these bricks,
with the parts of me that can’t die
and parts of me that I wish I still was.
I have to keep inventing reasons and occasions
I have to paint every meaning within me
in the boldest loudest colors.

Because the moment it all stops
I will hear the shouts again.
There is no silence in this world.
Outside, everyday
the fearful children of a fearless god
shout his name again and again.
Asking for reason, for rain,
for roses carrying their name.

I also once stood there, in the dark corridors,
on burning roads
asking god to love only me,
to hold my hand, to save me alone.
It is a very dark road,
the one we take to find
the light that will only belong to us.

And there is only this home of blindness
far away from all the crying and ceaseless hoping
where I can use these eyes of mine
for something more than holding and spilling tears,
where I get to sing for the god within the song.
I worship these walls that hold me in my place.
I worship all of your laughs, all the steps the never stop.

But I am still afraid
because tears still come easy to me,
because even this borrowed light whispers the name of one
who I still hope to reach.
The one who should exist somewhere outside these walls.
But I can only be here in this world of his
if I don’t run to him all the time.
I can be his, without falling short or falling apart,
only if I substitute what he has made for what he is.

“That poem doesn’t exist in this world” – Nayana Nair

Outside my body, outside myself
I feel
I can be the the girl
who walks to a stranger, smiles and asks his name,
who keeps her name in her mouth,
and doesn’t throw it away
along with the chewing gum in the nearest trash can.

Would she hold his hand?
I think she would.
But even then
would she be reminded of the the poem she wrote in seventh grade
“the ugliness of people dripping from their hands
at nights, holding my breath,
crushing my 27 teeth under an unwanted kiss,
promising to kill me next time“.
Probably not.
That poem doesn’t exist in this world,
let’s keep reminding ourselves that.

So yes, she holds this stranger
a bit more closer than she would have deemed wise
if she saw it how I would
and she would make promises- the kind lovers makes
before they know what love is.
He will ask about her life
and she will have no sad story to tell.
So she would talk about the recent window shopping-
the things she can’t have and things she can’t get
and she will not be talking in metaphors for once.

For once the one she wants to love
wouldn’t be obsessed with the wounds on her skin
to love, to treasure, to poke, to mock, to dig down further,
to own and to burn.
He will probably say something sweet about her smile
or maybe something boring about his work
and she would smile a bit more in either case.
Because she can smile here, in this world, in front of him,
without having to think about what his each word might hide,
what she is over-looking, what will be the tiny details
that will come back to hurt her, what will be the undoing of her heart.
She will smile cause she won’t have learned to be hate people beforehand,
she wouldn’t have learned to love a bit too late.

She would tell him that he is lovely,
and the blush in his cheeks will make her heart skip
and she would love him for loving him
and not because she is looking for an easy fix to her faltering mind.

“Lies I tell myself everyday” – Nayana Nair

I tell myself again and again
what it is that I really want
as I force myself to sit there and listen to every word
that diminishes the efforts I have put in my dream.
It makes me feel strong and pathetic at the same time,
that my wanting too little
could also be something that I must be criticized for,
something I must apologize for.
They force in their way into my mind
and take away every picture, every memory that exists
not for my happiness, not as a proof of my life
but a reminder, a reason for me to forgive and let go
of all the hurtful words that my dear ones
speak at me casually in the name of care.
I beg and cry inside,
outside I look unbothered.
I resort to everything,
anything to postpone this dismantling and rating of my life
even by a day.
I tell myself again and again
I can bear this
but I don’t think I can.
Every morning I convince myself
that all I do will make sense to them someday.
But will it really?
I do not have one person who believes in me,
in what I am capable of.
How long, how far can I walk
only by the strength of a delusional value and importance
that only I can attribute to myself.

“There was…” – Nayana Nair

There was a wrong story
that we were born into.
There was world
of violence outside.
But in the room
made of unreasonable
and unreachable dreams-
there was music,
there was you,
there was me.
The impossibilty
of being happy
in the life that ate us from within
and our ridiculous effort
to be everything that this life denies us.

“Shallow Hearts” – Nayana Nair

While the world can preach
of greater pain
and complain of shallow hearts
that never look out of themselves.
They never see the the windows of their heart
that were nailed shut
from outside.

“Recreate” – Nayana Nair

They recreated his room
with reverence
to his life
and his passions.
Paid attention to each small details
that can bring back who he was.
They debated over whether he would have
had photos of certain people
in the room where he wrote
or better, have crumpled paper
that got stepped over.

But to be honest
they had no idea of who he was
whatever they recreated,
was not him.

Maybe his poems were just pieces of him
that he either rejoiced
or loathed.
I believe there must be parts of him
that he was not aware of,
parts of him that he never got to pen,
which he was too busy to ignore.
What if his life was not worth the show?
What if he could only be himself
outside that room?