“Small Impossible Dream” – Nayana Nair

Her floor had always been the color of the season
I remember this, only when I step into the mess of her life.
The spring issues lay scattered like the flowers
The pink, red, yellows, and greens,
women who only know youth,
women who only grow younger
the kind of woman she wanted to be
(what a small impossible dream)
and she almost is.
And now that she can never change
would she be happy?
When/if she comes across her own lifeless eyes in the missing posters
would she be glad to be one of the “sad popular”?
I shatter the home of her missing goldfish
in my haste efforts to pick them up
and put them out of sight- the bundles of glossy paper
that my eyes can’t handle.
I try to put them away,
wanting to throw them away
now that she wouldn’t mind, now that she won’t yell at me
or anyone for taking away too much of her.
I want to try it.
i want to try, so she has no option but to stop me.
“let’s leave her in peace” tells me my moral compass and my grief.
“i don’t want to show her the kind of respect that only dead deserve”
shouts back my anger and my love.
I drop the heaviest bag in this world on her rain soaked bed.
Her last dress, her last chocolate wrapper, her last bus ticket,
her last mistake, her last breath
everything spilling out,
everything ruining the spring that I dreamed for her along with her.

“Consume and Forget” – Nayana Nair

The orange pink drops of raining summer
falls on the threadbare skin
and crying ribs of the broken umbrella
(the only one you have).
Strangers gather under the dark shadows
of leisure.
All the sorrows waiting on the tables
to be chosen, to be had,
promising you a deeper life than what you have.
To be consumed and to be forgotten,
till you wake up at night
to the sound of voice that you never had.
Tomorrow you can look at yourself in the
lying light,
to see what you are becoming
to make better decision
to buy smoother skin, captivating life
that is on sale on every street you walk,
for anyone with pockets full and empty hours.