“Variant of Love” – Nayana Nair

You held me as I broke again and again.
Your warm chest tried to hold me, to keep me alive.
I couldn’t cry anymore
I felt indebted to you I loved you.

You left me again
in the crowd that you promised to protect me from.
I called you, your number and you name-
becoming useless to me with each passing day.
I cried because
I felt cheated I loved you.

As my heart filled again, as it emptied itself out
you stayed in front of my eyes
in flesh or in glowing illusions,
telling me, nothing is wrong with me.
So I slept peacefully
because you made me forget my incompleteness I loved you.

You told me love is supposed to be a pain anyway.
That this smile of mine that shined in spite of your mistakes,
in spite of your cruelty on my weary hopeful heart
was the only thing that made you believe in my love.
And again I smiled back
so that you continue to believe me
because I loved you.

There were moments, glorious ones,
when you were the most the beautiful human,
when you cried for me,
when you cried for the world,
when you tried to do something right.
I wanted to stand beside you
so that I could protect you somehow
because I loved you more for it.

But now
I must face the world and myself alone,
without having to become something right in your eyes.
Now I don’t have to round up my every feeling
to a variant of love.
Now I can care for you, hate you
and see it as care and hate and a frustration without an end.
Now I can see you as the miracle and as the failure that you are.
Now I can be a failure myself.

I am not good at loving in the past.
I can only be honest.
Now I cannot look back at you
and call you my heart.
You were so much to me
that I badly wanted to be something that you want.
I kept on sleeping to keep your dream intact
and calling this love, when it clearly was not.
Even though it was probably something better than that.

“All the Time” – Nayana Nair

Some part of me is lighted up today
in the light that is most probably your doing.
And when the light hits the less cared for parts of me
contrary to the expectations and images of
decay that ate me away and the dust that filled me up,
what I see is an empty expanse.
I see you ready with the tools to build me
something more prettier, something more comfortable,
something more me.
You wait for that picture to reach my lips.
But I don’t have a picture yet.
I don’t know what to build here.
I am in love with this sweet emptiness,
this fresh start that I thought I would never get.
Can we just sit here for a while in this innocence
that would be soon tainted by us.
You say, “We have all the time in the world.”
No, we don’t.

“Divide in Two” – Nayana Nair

This day of unimportant advancement
will probably be the one that we will first forget.
Our hearts will pretend to be sad
to have forgotten all such beautiful harmless days.
We move into the next coming second,
dividing ourself in two.
The one left in past
always has the best,
always suffered the worst,
always surrounded by enviable beauty,
always the hero, the victim, the matyr.
While we go on forward selfishly
only taking what we really are.
Selfishly leaving the parts of us
that can be made glorious
only because if they are left behind.

“Return” – Nayana Nair

The cry that was stuck in my throat
turned out to be my name ,
that I had forgotten long ago.
Probably when there were too many of me
for me to hold,
to make space for the all other names
that I must never forget.
How often have I let go of my own hand
to hold the hand of others?
How often the part of me that threw away
never wanted to return to me?
How often I have been left empty handed
and alone at the end?
Yet I go down this same road
only for your sake.