“Now playing: the ominous names you are yet to know, yet to resent” – Nayana Nair

I board the train that I could
thinking,
only thinking about the one I couldn’t.
There are only tunnels, only darkness,
no network,
only cold metal that I rest my head
hoping for my fever to come down,
only windows that turn into mirror.

In those momentary mirrors
I always look like someone on life support.
In the crowd that no longer suffocates me
I cling to the wires that fill my ears
with the sound of past, with love that will never come back,
with the love that I will never be,
with everything I can’t bear to talk about nor forget.

Though it pains me to look at myself for more than 2 seconds,
I force myself to withstand my stare.
For if I take my eyes away from me
I end up looking into eyes of strangers
who twist and distort their faces
asking for a reason they can understand
or they end up looking away,
their heart as fragile as mine.

We all act as if we can know each other by a glance,
as if we would prefer to be the backdrop, the wallpaper
than to find eyes that can actually see us,
than to know one more human who is hell bent on proving
the brittleness of our species.
I understand their heart, their fear all too well.
My skin remembers what their heart has forgotten.
Though I don’t think anyone really forgets things like these.

“Trade Myself” – Nayana Nair

Will this river
that runs between us
loose its taste of mistrust,
if I take up your blood
and let go of mine?

I wish I could do that.

But a part of my mind,
that is yet to be corrupted by love,
rationalises and prefers
my loveless and homeless state
than to entrust my dreams to you.
It tells me
that if I can easily give them away
trade myself for a hope with an expiration date,
that if I don’t care
you won’t too.

“Playlist” – Nayana Nair

I go through my playlist,
looking for all the songs
that like-crazed people
have written for me and
for lonely nights as these.
This voice of stranger that sings my pain
takes me back to this same bed
and same sorrow
somewhere in the past that I want to loose.
Someone sits beside me yet again.
And this weight
is as frightening
as comforting.
To know that the spirits of the nights
that I have killed
are again here,
to take away a friend of theirs.

On nights like these,
I prefer the company
of sad cries that people call songs,
of walking memories that people call ghost.