“Version” – Nayana Nair

Sometimes the hatred, the bias that
people around him smoked
sticks to his clothes, his skin, his tongue
when I come near him.
He can wash it from himself with a sleep.
He can leave it at the door, when he steps in.
But I can’t wash it out of my mind.

In my mind
I mix up the person he is and the person he has to be.
But I realise that I do not know the person he is,
I only know the person he has to be for me,
I only resent the person he has to be for others.

The person he is, looks at me from his corner of eyes
and this stranger looks at me
not across oceans, not across roads of fate,
but across the versions of us filling up the space between us,
the versions we can never throw away.

This stranger looks at me and gives me the smile
that he has to wear for me.
For me to realise the love I have for the the days
I share with this person who spends his days with me,
loses his ways with me and grows old with me.
I smile back becoming the person I have to be for him,
becoming the version I love the most.

“Spilling the Ink” – Nayana Nair

You ask why I don’t stay and fight.
You ask if I realise that
I can win as much as others.
I tell you that everyone has a dream.
And what I get by staying and fighting,
are not my dream.
That I cannot live in this world
of regulated self-expression.
Always fearing when I would spill out of the lines.
So even if my broken is not as shabby and scattered.
Even if my madness is not the sort
that can get admiration.
Even if my hands struggle with holding myself where I am.
Just know that I leave,
not because of aversion to this world,
nor to find a better place.
I leave cause I cannot breathe in water
even if I want to.

“Love you better” – Nayana Nair

I thought I could love you better
if I knew you better.
But I realised,
‘what you are’
is a burden to you.
And you never wanted to be loved for what you are.
You wanted to be loved
in spite of what you are.

“Your Love” – Nayana Nair

I want to be the shiver
that runs through your body,
when you think of the one you love.
There are far more easier things
to say, to want
but they loose their meaning
as they make their way to my mouth.

As the days with you
disintergrate,
I find there are more ways of loving you
that the ways I did.
I find there are countless days ahead
days without me
and my absence has less to do with loss of love
and more with the cruelty of life
and nature of my soul.

How lonely it is to walk alone
even if I walk with you.
How easy it would be to accept this
if only I could become a part of you.
If I would wake up one day
and realise that I am
just one of the many voices in your head.
I think it would be easier to justify this loneliness
if we both are but one.
To know that we can never be separated.
How beautiful it would be, to become your love itself
rather than someone you love.