“Eventual Fall” – Nayana Nair

She just laughed and said
“you are not really intelligent,
you know that right?”
as she packed her bag,
making space for her only notebook, with difficulty.
I wonder if she really needs all those the things.
She is not a careful person,
I know that because her list of priorities is horizontal-
everything is important, everything is equally dispensable.
I hear a song breaking at the bottom of her lungs,
when she talks of the new thing that she will love forever
when I know she won’t.

She lets me know for my own good “geniuses are not made by effort,
love doesn’t happen by hard work,
quit swimming and struggling when you are on land.”
She takes me by hand, teaching me how to walk,
teaching me her pace.
Her pace unsettles me. She gives cruel names
to my innocent actions as she smiles.
She smiles at me while I wait for my forever to end.
And only because I hate myself
for not wanting to love her sometimes
I smile back.

I wonder how far my determination can take us.
As she finally boards the train home, after missing out on a few,
she says “stop struggling, when i am with you,
i know your heart, even when you don’t.
it hurts to see you like this,
things will eventually fall in their place.”
I wonder if she is pushing herself, within the limits of who she is,
to save something of us, to save something of me.
I wonder how she can love me, if she knows how petty my heart is.
And because I do not know the answers to her,
I wait for us to fall into the places.
I think of her and find it easier, this wait.

“It didn’t matter” – Nayana Nair

forest-girl-photography-pretty-sunset-Favim.com-450462

When love, friendship and family
were no big words
just words, like any other words
and it didn’t matter
which one mattered more,
which one came first,
it didn’t matter
what loyalty is , what betrayal is.

bfl

When I didn’t know these words
things didn’t hurt so much.
When I didn’t know these words
I loved my friends better,
I loved my family better.
Without looking for anything more than
simple peasure of their company
and single prayer of their well being.

bfl

But when these words
were laid out on paper,
on my heart,
along with conditions,
they seemed like an agreement,
a selfish transaction.
And I was no longer sure
whether I wanted any of it.