“Unchanging facts” – Nayana Nair

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All the stories and songs and
in this part of land, at this end of life – they are all about
the boat and its wood, about the shine of its old surface,
the sound of water it carries even as it sits on the dry
dying land, burning for hours and hours.
Hours not measured in the cups of water nor in the shadows
that refuse to fall in spite of all the light,
but hours measured by the cries of gull, the number of sails torn,
the diminishing weight of the men,
and the the silent wrath of all the glorious water.
We ‘the ones rooted to the shores’,
we sing from the shade of generous trees
to ‘the ones who only knew the abundance
of salt and wounds and undying dreams’,
trying to understand their alien love.
We sing of them and their hateful dreams,
of the tears they forced us to swallow because
they couldn’t love us if we wanted to be their shackles,
we narrate these unchanging facts every morning,
we dig a new grave for the same person again and again,
with each hole in earth as empty as the other.

“Getting better and better” – Nayana Nair

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I don’t trust myself with water these days. Of late I have found my arms devoid of the will to struggle. I seem to be getting better and better at abandoning myself.

I now only stand rooted at places where life comes easy. I only linger in spaces where not-breathing is more difficult than breathing. Against my best efforts, all I do is try to live.

The ways to live, the painful familiarity of the world, this stone stuck in my shoe, pressing against my sole, it all used to be unbearable. For long I tried to find a way to live with it. I always failed to find its use.

But now I know how to surround myself in the suffocation of it all, to fill my mind with the smoke of this crude life as I learn to see from scratch again. Hold parts of me captive somewhere, till the rest of me can chip away at my spirit that only sings of blood and end.

Today, in the hot summer afternoon, covered in breaking illusions, I walked away from the lake where my past swims. I unlearn one more pain. I found a road I had never seen, a garden never tended to, a foot of mountain where there was abundance of fruits and all new reasons to live.

“I am far away from giving up” – Nayana Nair

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Some kinds of love are made of flesh,
that can be killed eventually
however long it must take.
Forever does not exist for everyone.
But all that exists only in the kingdom of decay,
all that refuses to leave this flesh
as the knife of time cuts deeper and deeper,
those stubborn ones who only tend
to the roots of hopeless dreams
it was probably them, who thought up this scheme
of wanting a thing like this.
This fragile cloud of “forever” that will rain any day
and yet will rise from our tears and fill our skies again.
I am sad to say I am too weak to stray away from those skies.
I am yet to learn how to sever
the wants of my gods from my flesh.

“Redraw” – Nayana Nair

Every time I held your hand, I felt it.
Your blood, your voice, your mind
taking a step back,
a silent declaration,
“I can only love you this much”.

~

I stood on the lines I am not meant to cross.
I shifted uncomfortably from one leg to another,
afraid what my next step could do to your heart.
Wondering how much of this distance
is due to my insignificance?
How much of its reason roots in your fears?

~

I hope I knew how to fix things
that are not broken.
I wish I knew how to erase and redraw
our painfully distant orbits.

“Fading Heaven” – Nayana Nair

You asked
“Is this what becomes of love?
When this star falls and loses it’s distance,
when it loses it’s light
does it become nothing more than a stone
to be kicked around?”

I knew better than to tell you
that the stars do not care
for such trivial things as our love,
that the stars are more than mere stones,
when they fall they will take us as well
and that no one up in the fading heaven
is rooting for our happy end.

So I stay silent,
never meeting your eye.
I won’t let you see
all the faults of ours
that swims only in my eye.
I don’t want to say things
that I don’t want to come true.
One of us needs to be blind to reality
for this love to continue.

“Root” – Nayana Nair

Everything that reminds me of what I was
leaves me helpless.
Everything that tells me of what I could be
leaves me expecting,
makes my skin weak,
makes the wound stay.
All the right word you utter
is like the air carrying scents
of a distant garden.
The garden that I will never see,
for I am a person who lives with roots
deep into disappointment.
And though I try to cut myself free
from what hurts me most,
but they are still my roots
so my freedom almost feels like a death.

“What is it like?” – Nayana Nair

I have not known
what it is like
to stop looking for ways to prove
people and their minds
as the root of my the problems.
What is it like
to stop hurting others,
thinking everyone out there
has something against me.
What it is to undo the harm
of many many hands.
What is it like to help someone forget
the pain of living.