“but love…” – Nayana Nair

but love
the i cannot see you
without this night,
for you are not my sun
but only it’s reminder.

but love
i can be the person you love
only as long as you love be back,
as long as my heart wants to forget the past
and the owner of my heart.

but love
in your glory
i always fall short.
i yearn to love someone like me,
someone who plans the escape route
while uttering the words
of half-hearted embellished confession.

but love
i don’t want to be healed
my scars are my name
that i fear to lose
as much as i fear losing you

but love
as much as you want me
you should learn to hate me more
your benefit of doubt is wasted on me
as is your love.

but love
i have so many reasons
and so many feelings
that are at war with each other-
a war that i wish you’d win somehow.

but love
i do love you
in some conditional yet selfless way,
there is a sincerity in my love-
a sincerity that won’t do your heart any good.

“Aunt” – Nayana Nair

“Yes, I do have plans for my future my dear aunt.”
I say, after I see her put her cup down and look at me
with sympathy and resentment.
“How can we not worry.
It is your future we are talking about.”

Actually, I never had these conversation,
at least not with my aunt.
I never had such an aunt to bother me.
But there are relatives and other faces
that I am hiding under the name of a non-existent aunt.
Sometimes it is me who is hiding under that name instead.

I am handed down spare maps
that I am supposed to study and follow.
Mark my route and choose someone
who could help me get up in the morning
even if it out of hatred.
I am sure it will be hatred
because I have seen no one one who has sorted their life
to wake up feeling that they have done it right.

My bitterness might make me seem like
a remainder of uneasy and uncomfortable families,
but it is not so.
There are just too many non-existent aunts in our house
who thinks we could have done better, chosen better,
lived better-
if only we could get our act together
and stopped acting like the world owes us some kind of happiness.

This constant re-evaluation of life
and its result coming out as failure every time
makes everything we live with
and everyone we choose as a mistake.
What is this “better” that doesn’t let us live?