“Wrong Answer” – Nayana Nair

My guarantees and my assurances
do not come from my own voice,
do not reflect even a iota of my feelings.
They are not my words
and won’t ever be mine
even if voice them a million times.
But you have to make do with these promises,
the same way I am settling for yours.
I cannot say “love me, i’ll make you happy“.
I am the wrong answer,
I have to lie, I have to cheat
to be chosen.

If I was honest, if I loved you for real,
I would have told you this:

“my words, these empty castle hallways,
the mountains that never answer back,
a mirror lost and flooded with darkness,
the habit of taking up, stealing beautiful names
the thrill of forgetting,
every kind of messed up love,
a sweeter hate to forget reasons
they are all yours,
but you are better without them”

I must hate you a lot,
to hold your hand like this.

“Childhood Photo” – Nayana Nair

i do not want to be a child
who thinks that the world is this window
where i wait for you to return.
but i am.

and you are also the one
who has promised to never return.
but you have made many promises
and you have broken so many of it.
i guess i am counting on you
to stay true to who you are
and break another one.

i have done well on all my exams.
i have cleaned my room.
i have eaten all the greens.
you will be able to love me now.

they say you found love late
and the ones in love never return
to the loveless families
they want to forget.
have we been forgotten?
are we your embarrassing childhood photo?

mother cries a lot these days
and so i can’t cry anymore.
i can’t cry anymore
and i hate you for taking away my tears.

“Make you mine” – Nayana Nair

I believe that once
you had the chance to be true to someone.
I feel that someone is not me.
I know that whatever aches in you
was a wound that you chose to forget,
that wound carries a name unfamiliar to me.
I cannot hold your promises
when my hands are full of doubts.
I try to etch my name on your heart.
I see you bleed
and drained of love.
I see my hands stained
with the sleep that you have lost.
Yet no brutality, no compassion
can make you mine.
This is not what love was supposed to be.

“Mistaken” – Nayana Nair

Surely
there were others as well
who were standing beside me till now,
who loved me, at least liked me.
Surely I am mistaken
that I am abandoned.
There were several houses that fell silent
as my legs lingered on their doorsteps.
There was a sigh of relief as I left.
A sigh
muffled by my own will to ‘not hear’.
As I went far from them,
their memories and promises
became louder in my head.

Surely I was mistaken.

“Our House” – Nayana Nair

In that house that stands
on the border of two hearts,
where as your eyes scan the room
I became one of the collected belongings.
I found your curses and blames
hidden in odd places.
In the bottom of a tea cups, of tea made too sweet
In the peels of an apple left on tables.
In the picture frames full of strangers.
In the list of unanswered calls.
In the names you murmured in your sleep.
Where I ceased to belong to either world
and belonged just to you.
And it made me sad.
In that house
Where the promises feel the lack of ‘forever’.
I took my last breath
as your love.

“A Rare Love” – Nayana Nair

Today, I was reminded of
a fading memory
of a rather idle summer afternoon,
of me sitting on floor
in the living room
with people who loved me
and people whom I loved.
Between whom, ‘love’ word was never spoken aloud;
for whom ‘love’ was not to be taken lightly.
The rare love that didn’t demand commitment,
promises and responsibility.

The lightness of that afternoon,
the lightness of that love,
when we saw the same movie for nth time
laughed on same repeated jokes,
(the jokes I don’t remember),
that lightness was enough to keep us
from growing old for a long long time;
enough to assure us
that we have someone who cares.
And though we feared we would loose what we have,
today is a day much similar to that
and we are still the same.
That makes me smile.