“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.

“What I Remember (21)” – Nayana Nair

I prod and push the glass slowly, carefully
to the edge of the table,
where your glass stands.
At the edge where you place your suitcase,
where you always tie your laces once again
just to be sure.

That is the place you tell me to love
when you think I might lend something of me
to keep such place alive,
to keep you warm while you keep the door open
like the way the you like them to be.

This is the place you tell me to forget
when the color of my skin doesn’t match the color of your new sky,
when your new birds keep singing songs
of ‘soulmates’ with better specification
when it becomes your new caller tune,
when you think of the best version of your life.
You think of that too often, quite loudly
for me to really forget anything.

This is all I remember of you:

“i never thought you were weak enough to need anyone or anything.”
“i thought you were wise enough, i thought you were better than your gender.“
“call me. meet me. i am feeling down.“
“call me. meet me. listen to me, no one else does. only you have ever cared.“
“call me. meet me. i want us to end.“
“you are too much for me. you are too little in the eyes of anyone in this world.“
“you are so close to having my fickle demanding unfair love, why do you ruin everything by being yourself.
i would have loved you for 2 more years, if you were not messed up.“

When I think of the glasses, of my life, of everything
that I dangerously left at the edges
just to be your equal, just to make sense of you-
I am glad I have claimed back my madness
instead of trying to understand yours.
I am glad I do not have to live my life
compensating for your weakness, calling it love.

“What do you know?” – Nayana Nair

why is it so
that i can only choose love if i let myself look weak.
it should have been easy to look weak and crumbling,
when that is what i feel all the time.
but it isn’t easy.
maybe because the weakness of my heart has never made me look incompetent,
it just made me look cold and aloof.
being good for nothing is more tragic than being broken or being hated.

how hard i have tried all my life to be good at something.
so that i am not useless, so that people don’t leave me behind on purpose,
so that i can at least look like someone capable and not be embarrassed of myself.

after all the years of running around
and making myself believe
that soon, soon i will become someone i can be proud of;
instead of finding myself, i find you.
i find the in myself the want
to let go of this control, that hurts my hands,
but letting go hurts my pride.

somehow i can’t stop blaming you for asking me to live as me,
for asking me to stop hurting myself.
what do you know about the life i have lived?
what do you know about the things i have sacrificed for living like this?
how can you ask me to break what i have built for years?

i cry, i push you away, i cling to the what i am supposed to be,
asking you why you can’t just be what i supposed you would be.
again i am asked to choose between me and this world.
again i know i will choose myself.
(by choosing to please the world rather than choosing myself?)
but you have some nerve to declare that i won’t.
i hate you for your stupid confidence
and your disregard for all that i will lose.

“Braid Your Love” – Nayana Nair

I couldn’t help but to love you,
this you,
that from your darkness pushed me away,
tried to save me from my choices.

***

When I told you that I loved you
for your selfless honestly,
you made up your mind to leave.

***

You told me as you packed your bag
that all honesty is not selfless,
that while you pushed me away
you knew that I would love you even more.

***

As a goodbye you braided my hair
with the flowers of your tear.
You left me with a letter,
when you robbed me of your shadow,
with ink dipped in concern,
saying that you wanted me to be better than
your second chance,
a daily pill to forget what you are,
a shoulder to bear your burden.
That only by rejecting the luxury
of being loved unconditionally,
could you ever learn to love
and see me as a human
who can bleed by loving too much.
That your leaving might be the only true gesture
that shows what you feel for me,
that it is the only thing you can do for me.

“Pay it off” – Nayana Nair

Most my life is about
standing at the edge with the others
and choosing whether to push them first
or giving up on myself, by throwing myself away.
And all my decisions have ended up
in wait for someone else to decide my fate.
Wait long enough to think we are friends
who are here watching the world set on the sun,
wait long enough to feel betrayed by the choice
I myself would have made
at some point.

***

But I think there may have been iterations
that I choose not to remember
where I was the one who severed my feelings for others
with series of selfish decision.
That is probably why
even when I fall
instead of feeling resentment,
I say to myself
“suffer a little more, pay it all off
that is all that is left too do now.”

“Cut Away” – Nayana Nair

How my feelings turn into a joke
in your hands.
How I have laugh
at the sight of this
and accept it as something normal.
Is this my punishment?
For pushing away people,
who really cared,
who looked for me every time I left.

~~~

But maybe they could do that
only because they never knew me.
But you know me too much.
Every dialogue with you
makes me realize, makes me see
another part of me
that I need to cut away
to become worthy of your love.

“Can’t do this alone” – Nayana Nair

Hold me back
from loosing myself to the the slow pain
that reaches from within me
spiraling up to any light it can see.
Pushing me, climbing over me.
Not caring.
Needing not to care,
while my body moves
from one breaking world to other,
from one uncertain gaze to another.

As I read my own words aloud,
as I see myself trying to disown them,
to strip away my own image
that I must maintain
for others to be at peace.
I feel the need for the closed boxes of solitude
where I made my own seasons and delusions
where I rehearsed answers to questions no one ever asked.
I don’t want to go back to that place,
the only place my heart thinks of as home.
I can’t do this alone.
This life of yearning and restraining
myself from living my own life.

“Pursed Lips” – Nayana Nair

As I purse my lips,
trying to push back words
that I am afraid are the wrong ones.
I wonder,
stand in awe,
of those gentle souls
who heal so many hearts.
While I fail
to utter any words,
fearing,
not knowing,
what might break them.