“A leaking instrument of love” – Nayana Nair

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Some part of her
has taken root here.
In this forsaken place,
she flowers and spills
the soft resilient petals of sun
on the dissolving roads,
on the floods of blue.
She lays her soft claim
on the wings of unnamed birds,
on the broken shrines,
on the leaking instrument of word,
on this throat
that knows her name
to be the only god
capable of a love so tender
that she becomes the holy wind
in this sail of a skin,
this skin that heals and breaks
and blooms with blood, only to
become, only to remain
as the last trace of an impossible embrace.

“Before Alphabets” – Nayana Nair

Before knowing the alphabets
of your name or mine,
I learnt to make you smile.
I pluck another flower that makes me sneeze every time
but the silly pathetic me smiles as you smile
as I crawl to you
losing balance,
losing something similar to heart,
as I dress you up in a mountain of petals I clenched too hard
hoping you would never move away from me.
How you dozed off as I made myself sick with my ambition.
How you were still sleeping as your mother took you in arms
brushing away every piece of my care.
But it is better than the days I woke up
with only the traces of my feelings, my cradle of flowers
without you in it.

“Eventually” – Nayana Nair

This jail, that I could not break out of,
it had bars made of petals,
ceilings lighted with memories
and under my feet
the hearts of people beating only by my love
(or so I wanted to believe).
It was the fragile nature of this confinement
that made my escape impossible.
And even though I was a captive-
that small space was also a world,
a less harsher world.

Once I make my way out,
there would be nowhere to return to.
It was a bubble that couldn’t be remade
by regrets and tears.
For many reasons, I promised myself an escape everyday
without even trying to leave.
I know I will leave eventually.
At some point, we all have left those rooms-
that feel like prison when lived in
and feel like unattainable dreams once lost.