“on the questionable ways to feel alive” – Nayana Nair

.

another bird breaks into light
and the someone applauds.
a fire is born in the clouds.
a wind filled with cries
flows in through windows of happy castles.
everything painful is now essential.

i sign my writing with assurances
that it is not too much, this much i can handle,
this much i can live.
i stand tall, i persist in light
with the heartiest smiles
all the time planning on the next crack
that i dream to give birth to,
the next tear that i will paint on myself…
all the while knowing there is something wrong.

something is wrong
with the way i live and the way i feel,
with the things that i see and want.
but has knowing ever helped.
knowing just makes me more reckless.
knowing makes me want to fly again
even though i know
i will be shot down by my own arrows.

“The Remaining Beautiful Sculpture” – Nayana Nair

.

The houses are all empty, the roads deserted,
the remaining beautiful sculptures,
in the overgrown lawns of this plastic world,
have no eyes and no intent to save anyone.

Someone tells me my new lines
and I nod and wait for my voice to arrive.
Someone else opens my cage and you are also
somewhat released from your prison.
We walk the small distance of this model road,
revising the conditions of our freedom in our head.

You hold my hand and it feels like nothing.
How perfect. How hollow.
But soon the sun will rise and fill us with light.
Soon it would all be beautiful.
I almost wanted tell you,
“this emptiness is such a beautiful catalyst
for reckless beginnings”. But I guess you already knew.

As we all wait for the sun,
you tell me you have a name and I nodded.
I realized I could not say the same about myself anymore.
I realized much later that you never told what it is, your name.
A name is such a hollow thing, to be filled up by the person only later.
I don’t know the order of importance of things in this world.
So I guess this must be normal.

As the sun came out of hiding, I was filled with words again
and the words that I wrote in that first light was,
“we both could write poems that can break worlds.
we could be so much more than this. and maybe we are.
maybe we want to be something less. something simple.
something harmless. but is that even possible?“

As I wondered what your real words looked like,
I uttered the words I was told to,

“the houses are all empty, the roads deserted,
the remaining beautiful sculptures ,
in the overgrown lawns of this plastic world,
have no eyes and no intent to save anyone.
i won’t save you. i will be just like others.
i will look at you and wonder. i will smile and forget.
i will love and forget.
but i will remember you in your crudest form.
you will exist in my vocabulary like waves and perfumes
and home and roads. but you will remain.
i will make sure of it.“

And with all the conviction and gratitude you replied,

“that is enough. i can be saved just by that.“

I believed you so much in that moment
that I wanted to mean every word I spoke
and maybe that was the moment my love was born
for you.

“Only sad poems spring from my mouth” – Nayana Nair

.

When I think of you in an indefinite future
without me,

when I think of the past, this glowing mixture
of wax and webs, sticking to my eyes,
to my uncertain touch,
to my every new dream and hope for love;

when I cry, when I laugh, when I say even my own name
the mountains of stories, send me back your voice.
They say you will be cited as the reason
for my every my recklessness and my every holding back.

True to the prophesies of love
my skin wilts and dies and eats itself up.
My heart cries and cries and makes jokes about crying.
Nothing makes sense and yet everything is just as it should be.

And now I can call you my everything and
nothing in the same breath
and still know that even if I let your shadow swallow me whole
I can’t ever call all this love.
I won’t ever feel “love” for you again.

Yet only sad poems spring from my mouth,
when I think of you.

“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.

The Scale of 1 to 10 (part 5)” – Nayana Nair

#enemy_of_hope

On my way to you, there is a world that I must walk through. In the dense fog, through the things truer than us, the steps that I take are the heaviest, the decisions I make the most difficult.

“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons every where
Looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way
I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all”
–“Both Sides Now”, Joni Mitchell

“I embrace the world and take a quick, deep breath
The stinging air that fills my lungs says it all
Yeah, I who wanted to escape countless times
The long times I suffered through, becoming numb
Right underneath those times
Everyday I pray
that I can be a little better grownup
And everyday I stay
Because all humans and all the pains eventually die
We have to face the wind to become numb”
–“Everything Goes”, RM

“As much as my heart flutters, I’m just as afraid”
–“Serendipity”, Jimin

There is a sky that sometimes waves at me, sometimes sings to me in rain, sometimes reminds me why I must stop. I have followed rivers as blue as this view to find a feeling resembling love in me, I have created a version of myself softer than these clouds so that it is only me who is hurt in the stories that I tell you when you find it difficult to find sleep in this world. Stories that you recite back to me, on the days my heart refuses to beat for anyone, even for you, even for me.

“Just when I thought a day
As beautiful as everyone else’s
Was about to start
Clouds out of nowhere
Gather to pour down their rain”
–“October Rain”, 10 cm

“If I was only by myself
If I didn’t know you
Maybe I’d have given up
Lost at sea”
–“Heartbeat”, BTS

There are steps made of stone, a corner store selling smoke to kill or to cloud my heart when it gets unbearable, a house falling apart with a kid gone lost, a kid falling apart in the reckless pursuit of something better than the safe shadow of easy peace. I pass by them to the next road, pretending that I do not know the possibilities of great failure awaiting us all, especially them – those who wait for change with a heart of hope.
I walk a bit faster, just as you told me. I do not let my shadow, the sound of my restless steps reach them. I think of you and keep my pace. I think of you who will make me forget this unpleasant afternoon, this misfortune of seeing myself before I was wrecked.

“I see Pinocchio wearing a poncho
That’s me some time ago.”
–“Tokyo”, RM

“Maybe I got stronger
Maybe I got indifferent
I used to cry only once or twice a year
But now tears are coming
On this hidden path”
–“Nosedive”, Dynamic Duo ft. Chen

“If I keep walking around reality, impotently
Sometimes, I feel like a ghost
Loneliness is like a grave
But you always take me out of it
You’re like the chorus of this song”
–“Nosedive”, Dynamic Duo ft. Chen

“You’re my painkiller
When my brain gets bitter
You keep me close
You keep me close”
–“Painkiller”, Ruel

“You seem like the whole of this world to me
Harder and more painfully embrace me”
–Best of Me, BTS

My heart is an enemy of hope.
My hate for hope rises more and more everyday. It rises like a child filled with helium and happiness, it flutters like a flag of a nation I do not recognize and can no longer love. My hate for hope, runs through the carnivals, through the fields of futile dreams that my feet trample and waste away. It runs into your arms of firework filled with love. And you, you smile, confused if it is okay to have such a stubborn single-minded love born out of hatred for the world, wondering if you are bad for me.
My heart is an enemy of hope that never wanted you, never dreamed of you.
My hopes still sits beside me, telling me about the things I could have had and loved instead. Sadly, my hope never dies.

“I began to change,
began to fall, and be steady..
since I have known you,
I have started to move toward you..”
–“Hasi Ban Gaye”, Humari Adhuri Kahani

“I can’t sleep, homesick, babe.
I just wanna stay right next to you
If I could choose my dream
I just wanna stay right next to you.”
–“Tokyo”, RM

“What kind of soul do you possess
to have something that ties me to you like this?
Even though I don’t even have old nostalgic memories of you?”
–“Seoul”, RM

“Yeah, even if I want to fly, I don’t have any wings.
But your hands become my wings.
I want to try forgetting the things that are dark and lonely
together with you.
Even though these wings sprouted from pain,
they’re wings that face the light.
Even if it’s hard and it hurts
if I can fly, I’m going to fly.
Can you hold my hand
so that I won’t be afraid anymore?
Because if you and I are together
I can smile”
–“You Never Walk Alone”, BTS

I force myself up the uphill road. I cling onto railings and walls decorated with moss. I am never alone on such roads, I become everyone I face. I almost become someone you could never love. I am army of possibilities, an army raging against your reign. I become the person who, even under your closed eyes and soft breath, cries for all that ended up dead just for me to love. I become the person who placed his ears on the ground above your ribs, searching for a way out. I again become the faceless heartless entity enchanted by the the glitter of masks that demand a sacrifice, of you and me.

“If I could make sense of it all
All the hours I don’t understand,
the time we can’t go back to,
the moment filled with nothing but regret –
it seems like all those times will go flying
I don’t know how to cope with the feelings
that I’m feeling without you now”
–“Insomnia”, DA￦N feat. YAYYOUNG

“Sometimes I’m disappointed in myself
I willingly trample on myself
“Is this all you are?
Have to do much better.
You have to be much cooler.
If you’re gonna lose, might as well die
You have to win, you you you.
You.”
–“Uhgood”, RM

“I’m now so tired of you
Your constant ash-grey expression
No, no, I’m afraid of myself
Because I’ve already become a part of you.”
–“Seoul”, RM

“But I can’t give up the “me” that you know of.
I can’t let go of the “me” that I know of.”
–“Uhgood”, RM

When tomorrow comes,
How different it’s gonna be?
Why do love and hate sound just the same to me?
–“Tokyo”, RM

My way to you is a world always in turmoil. It is also filled with glowing breadcrumbs of your love. I could never lose my way even within myself.

“But I believe, even though it’s unbelievable
Losing way
Is a way of finding way”
–“Lost”, BTS

Even if it is the path I chose,
and everything is a fate that I created
Even if it is a sin that I committed,
and this whole life is only about paying for my sin.
Walk with me.
Fly with me”
–“You Never Walk Alone”, BTS

“I have not seen “the end” for me yet either
But if that [end] existed, wouldn’t it be you?”
–“Best of Me”, BTS

“What can I do? I speak with your words
And I breathe your breaths
I’ll be you
You, who are holding me,
I kiss your sword”
–“Best of Me”, BTS

“On rainy days
Lying down, not a single word
Gazing with our eyes closed, everything becomes ours”
–“Everything”, The Black Skirts

“Reduced” – Nayana Nair

One of these days
I might just stop loving you
and that might just break me.
But I feel
I might be less cold,
less reckless,
and less pathetic
in that sort of breaking.
I want to be reduced to myself for once.
For once I don’t want to carry around
the magnificence of undelivered love on my shoulder
and stand outside stores with doors too small.
I dream to become the whole of my skin
rather than just the wounds that hurt.
I think only this dream can save me,
make something peaceful out of me,
make me someone harmless.
One of these days I will look at you
and nothing in me would ache,
at least not because of you.

“Reckless” – Nayana Nair

I always told myself
that I am doing something wrong
if I do not ask myself hundred question
about my own intent
and about my own ability to face the result
of what I was doing.
In my bouts of recklessness
I may have done a lot of things that I regret
but that are probably the only things
I have actually done in my life.
Sometimes one action without prior meditation
tells more about who I am
than hours and years of contemplation.