“Come and Kneel and Dream” – Nayana Nair

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Come and kneel here my child.
This is our new lord, our new god.

Come here and learn his face,
learn all things he doesn’t like to see in us.

Promise me that you will never try
to be a reflection of him, never hold him in your heart.

Even as you bow to him, to powers of cruelty
repeat to yourself again and again,

that no god ever killed freedom; no savior,
no beacon of light, no provider of grain owns your soul.

This is all that I have managed to do so far-
silently witnessing and persevering.

Cowardly, I have survived without giving in, without opposing,
without saving, without killing anyone, protecting just you and me.

To bow my head with tears in my eyes
is the only thing I could do with the strength the new gods left in me.

I do not know what to ask from you, what to teach you
but somehow you must outlive all those who prey on all things good.

My crimes of silence and tolerance leaves me no right
to speak of peace or love or future

but I feel fear and hope thinking of you.
You – who has never seen the world with open sky and kinder hearts

will either dream of a strength drawn out of blood of others
or you might just realize the value of everything that people call weak now.

Come and kneel here my child, in front of all those who teach us
to build our own prisons and build them bigger thrones.

All those who hold our lives hostage binding us with our own fear-
look at them and imagine a world where they don’t exist; not even within you.

“Embracing me” – Nayana Nair

On my closed hopeless eyes
you placed your lips
and something in me broke open.
And I burst from within,
from all my prisons.
From all my pseudo homes
I heard myself crying.

I heard the the noises of television
in the heavy air of my living room
die out, I heard myself breathe.
I heard the knocks on my door
and found all my lost selves
staring at me one second,
embracing me the next.

They told me
it could be the blue moon,
it could be the cyclone that is running wild,
it could be the end of earth predicted too many times,
it could be flowers-that-no-one-loves blooming in our land,
it could my restlessness and fear of being left behind,
it could be you.

As you sink into the couch,
forgetting the nail you painted seconds before,
as you look around frantically for remote,
as you leave the evidence of beautiful color
on my skin,
I realized,
that I found in myself the honesty to say out aloud,
to tell you, to accept that it is probably you.

“Used to this” – Nayana Nair

The light is not enough.

I must somehow reach the empty glasses
that hold no memories, no magic.
They won’t light up,
and all I can do is to learn to live in dark.
I need to get rid of all of them.
Sure, sitting here in the prison of you,
calling it a garden of leftover love is romantic.
Sure, learning to do everything by myself
all over again can be sort of fun,
I used to be good at that.
It is easy, it is comfortable in fact
to live with this space
that I don’t want to name after you.
I like to say “I have gotten used to this”
as if my heart is bigger than every misfortune left in your wake,
as if I really know how to forget.

“Another Song for You” – Nayana Nair

I will make you yet another song
that you will unfailingly forget,
but these are not for you to remember me anyway.
Only dip your tired bleeding feet
into these gentle waters of my heart.
Soak in the words that you deserve to hear.
And then you can again go on that path,
that calls you day and night.
I hope my words, my songs
never become the prison
that your heart dreads so much.
I will make you yet another song
to keep you company on the roads
that you want to walk alone.
To hold you hand
in the your weak human moments
that you don’t want anyone to witness.

“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.

“Step into the memory” – Nayana Nair

I sing them a song
in the voice that may soothe their hearts
but fills me with feelings
which are very similar to words
like choke, suffocation and breathlessness.
Though you might not think twice about it,
I know what I have done.
I have walked into the prison that my life was.
But I love myself for taking that step
into the memory of darkness
that cannot actually hurt me.
It is just remains of the hurt that was.
But here I also find remains of ‘me’ that was.
And I am happy, for I know
rarely do people get chance
to become what they were, even for a minute.

“People” – Nayana Nair

I long yearned for
someone to understand me,
accept me.
Is that what they call friends?
I too had such friends.
I yearned for
someone to adore me.
I believed it was love.
And now since I had my share of both,
I wish I could be alone,
I could be free.
For I know the constraint people are.
That love ties you up,
puts you in prison,
that stands
even after they leave.

“Safe” – Nayana Nair

My bare feet are as cold as

the marbled floor, it rests on.

And my heart is as fresh as

the smell of earth after rain.

My hands move on the rim of my glass

from which I drink up life.

And I close my eyes knowing

these bars will keep me safe.

I’ve got a key, to let in those

who care enough.

They keep me safe from the sick world

And from the cruel and the insane.

I take off my glasses

and they powder in my fist.

I blow them through the bars

on which they settle and seem like dust.

My feet seems to sink in the floor.

And the air is red with my screams.

There is ink on my fingers, on my tongue.

On the touch of shards of my broken glass.

I bleed blue.

It’s getting lonely here,

no one cares, no one visits.

I cannot stay here any more,

But my key doesn’t fit.

I look at those outside,

mocking me.

The bars were not to keep them out.

It was to keep me in.