“Buses I Miss” – Nayana Nair

Going back home is always difficult.
Everything stands in my way-
the weather, the traffic,
the buses I miss by seconds,
the roads under repair,
the detours I must take,
phone calls and thoughts
that come at inopportune time,
my heart, and you.
For as long as you are not where I am going,
as long as you are not home,
I will only have places to sleep or suffer.
Or a place to write about you.
So if my steps halt and my heart slows
when we part for the day,
keep me with you for a second more
for I have nowhere to go.

“Memorizing Names” – Nayana Nair

There was no joy to wander,
to pack my bags
with belongings not entirely mine
and to have a bagful of borrowed stuff,
of borrowed time.
Living on the kindness
that I didn’t deserve.
Each new handhake
sounded like
echoes of heartbreak
from the future.
I knew where I was going
and I knew where I was taking them.
And that made me hate this ordeal
of trying to memorize the names
of all these new people
who will be soon forgotten.
My heart was never broken.
My home was never broken.
At least not the type of broken
that can’t be repaired.
I do not have shelter of such excuses.
I chose to stay,
I chose to love
and I chose to move away.
I choose to live with the list of names
to the end
than to see them walk away.

“Beyond Repair” – Nayana Nair

At some place in my life I realized that
I was ruined beyond repair.
And when I was done with all the crying,
with all the cursing,
and being therapist
to the girl that I was .
I grew up enough
to know,
that even if I can’t be what I was,
I can still be someone.
No one had to fix me.
Someone just had to show me, that it can be done.
And all the hope, that I thought was lost,
was back in the air that once seemed suffocating.