“Personal Sun. Personal Shadow.” – Nayana Nair

.

the green pastures
the white fences
the perfect fake loving gaze
the debts of kindness
the half that never completes itself for once
the ornamental lackings of my being
the personal sun, the privilege to look away
and never know the heart of one who can’t
the greed such that I can’t stop receiving
the ideals that I can live without,
ideals that are already falling short
to accommodate
my monstrous growth, my falls from grace,

All these,
everything that I say I don’t need
is also
all that I cannot give back.

It is easier for me
to live,
to be kind,
to understand,
to love
with a life of hypocrisy,
with a guilt weighing down my heart,
with the smile that I can get only because
the world is unfair.

It is easier for me to smile
at the knife stuck in my back.
It is easier to forgive
when I cannot forget my own blood stained hands,
my own reckless selfish heart.

“Will you be fine?” – Nayana Nair

Why does it pain like this
to be at the receiving end
of your kindness,
of this smile I have done nothing to deserve?
How can you be the only one
who find me worthy of love,
when I have proved time and again that I am not?
Should I be thankful for your consideration
or should I wait for your patience to run out
before I can accept all you do for me?
How long should I wait
to see if you change your mind?

Don’t you see this distance
I always keep between you and me.
This continuous suspicions
that I have on my fate
and all things that you have never done
but I keep saying that you will.
How long can you listen to me
saying
that you will leave me eventually,
that you will find another.
This anger that I have for the world
seems only to affect you,
for you are the only one who cares.
How long will you be fine
caring for someone like me?

“Surrounded by Chatter” – Nayana Nair

With marker I scribble on the mirror
the list of complains I have from you,
not caring if they mess up my own reflection.
Sometimes thankful that under that I can hide my own
obsession with what people will think of me,
how much will they value based on the value you give me.
An obsession I cannot really admit I have.
After all I am supposed to just ask for what I want
and not what everyone tells me I should want and I should have.
But are my wants really immune from the template of dreams
that world sets apart for people like us.

When I sit surrounded by chatter
I remember how I had to seal my lips,
had to come up with stories more acceptable than
the vague transitions of my life and my heart
from one state to another.
Even if I put on songs of love and think of you
I am just presented with all that I am waiting to receive from you.
(Does that make me greedy or calculating?)
But somehow I always bring myself around to the life I must live
that would be easy to live
if I didn’t compare myself to others,
if it was easy to turn your back to the the judging eyes
especially the one being judged is not only you
but also the object of your affection.

“Rewrite” – Nayana Nair

I could say that you are so far away
that you cannot know what makes me
even if you tried.
For I feel the excuse of distance cannot fill this basket
that would have been essentially filled with the
reasons that are easier to put in mouth
but difficult to wrap our heart around.
Like the words that are often deleted and rewritten
so as not to offend.
And rewritten thousand times
so that they say nothing, mean nothing.
And we are content at the fact
that we could voice something in this world
even if the purpose of these words
was to just to fill up the air, fill up our time.
And the space just widens between us,
not because
there is distance between our heart
(because this wide world was made
for our heart to roam,
so this distance cannot be avoided).
But because I could never let you
rest your head, rest your questions
on the lap of my thoughts.
So that you may know
how my life (just like yours)
simmers under the heat of
indifferent care
that we are all used to receive.