“Another Round of Wrong Guesses” – Nayana Nair

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In that room
seated along with my anxious heart,
my crumbling forevers, and my noisy pen,
was you.
You are now more colorful than ever-
more real, more present.
You are more you that before,
more of a person that I ever could be.
I envied you and loved you for that- that I remember.

I realize there other things that I don’t remember well,
as you put on the record
of “50 greatest pointless questions of all time”,
as you sharpen the edges of your weak hollow anger,
as you ask me to play a harmless game,
another try at the precious once-in-a-lifetime love,
another guess, another stab, another cut,
another laughter echoing and tearing
everything that almost made me human,
another try, another guess, another endearing laugh
at the sight of my tears.

I had decided that won’t flinch, that I won’t cry.
I looked at the paper again
that said that I am not actually hurt,
that everything I suffer from is a making of my mind,
that I am just too scared,
too lonely to think straight ever again.
I looked at it wanting to believe it
but also knowing I won’t allow this paper to fix this for me.

For even to this image- this violent beautiful ghost of you,
even to this- I felt I owed something.
I still waited for you to give up.
It still mattered to me – this confirmation-
that what I loved
also loved me back in some twisted way.
So I nodded yes to another rounds of wrong guess,
to this game I won’t ever win.

“Last Everything” – Nayana Nair

There are bouts of tears,
phone calls,
consolation, advice,
and it ends.

The river stops
and flows again.

There are missed calls, busy tone,
letters never penned,
the sky
that didn’t shatter like glass.

The river stops
and flows again.

There is me,
there is you,
there are our days together
and the days we will never have.

Nothing ends
even if I break.
The river stops
and flows again,
even if I lose
my last breath,
my last love to it.

“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?

Period

As I finish the last line of a poem,
my ballpoint pen, whose ink ran out,
collapses, completely exhausted, on the blank page.
Have a good rest.
I will mark the period with my tear.

–‘A Gentle Cow’ by Oh Sae-young

“ONE STEP CLOSE”- Nayana Nair

I think a lot,

But seldom write.

I feel incapable of writing.

My thoughts get crystallized

In my mind and refuses

To flow through my pen.

Frozen out of fear.

Knowing that with each word I pen,

I am one step closer to realizing,

That I am ORDINARY.