“Forgetting” – Nayana Nair

.

Is forgetting something like

descending down the the narrow white steps
and finding myself knee deep
in the coolest spring on the hottest day of year.
An year that I feel I am yet to live,
a temperature that feels a bit too familiar.

Is forgetting something like

looking back at the steps and trying to recall
where I am from, trying to recreate the horrors or happiness
that I am running from,
Wondering if I was actually running.
A part of me begging me to go back,
a part that keeps saying that where I came from
was the only place I ever wanted to belong to.

Is forgetting something like

being brought back to the year,
that I am trying to avoid looking at,
by the receding cold water,
to see my feet run
after the blue shadow, the floating leaves,
the place no summer can reach.

Is forgetting something like

reaching a place
far away from the narrow, broken stairs to past,
but also a place where no springs, no summer exist.
In such a place without symbolisms and signs
I keep finding
another pitiful deity of broken and beautiful hope.

Is forgetting something like

finding faith, loving again, blindly believing.
To close my eyes, to the me that I am now,
just to hear myself running down the stairs,
just to feel the water find my feet again.

“I can be your helpless angel” – Nayana Nair

I place broken glass of every color at your feet.
I know how you loved the way they looked.
I will re-create every beauty that you asked for,
I will make them incapable of the danger that you fear.
So that you can walk in this unsettling world,
walk over every broken glass.
I can draw a faceless person to walk by your side,
so you don’t have to feel sorry
when you forget their names
or when they forget you.
It is a world you can never be in
but I will draw it anyway,
because this world that I don’t want for you
is the only world that can make you happy.

“Grey n Green” – Nayana Nair

Once you were my love,
but now and forever
you will be the person
whom I could never make smile.
Now and forever
I will cry over you,
run away from you,
promise myself to forget you
just to sit up nights
trying to recreate a part of you
that doesn’t hurt me,
that loves me back.
I will melt my bed and my sleep
under the flame of your smile.
The posters of superheroes,
of dear but forgotten stars,
they turn grey and burn green,
like my heart does.
My hands will paint your words
on these walls.
So I will never be lonely.
So I will never smile.

“Recreate” – Nayana Nair

Interior-of-Reconstructed-Dylan-Thomas-Writing-Shed-Laugharne

They recreated his room
with reverence
to his life
and his passions.
Paid attention to each small details
that can bring back who he was.
They debated over whether he would have
had photos of certain people
in the room where he wrote
or better, have crumpled paper
that got stepped over.

bfl

But to be honest
they had no idea of who he was
whatever they recreated,
was not him.

bfl

Maybe his poems were just pieces of him
that he either rejoiced
or loathed.
I believe there must be parts of him
that he was not aware of,
parts of him that he never got to pen,
which he was too busy to ignore.
What if his life was not worth the show?
What if he could only be himself
outside that room?