run away – it rains in my heart

“How to guard the doors and fail miserably” – Nayana Nair

It is not the night that brings in the monsters.
They are just creatures, just nature-
that exist outside the door that you are guarding.

They come in because this world is theirs as well.
They come in because they can,
just like how you can go out.
This is the fair deal you don’t want to exist.

At least they do not look for you,
they do not mark your picture
and throw darts at it.
I love them for that,
for the lack of vicious premeditation,
the lack of fun in their delivery of hurt.

The river of pills that flows into my window
has nothing to do with them.
The hurt that keeps you awake,
the nails that slowly make marks
on the surface of your eyes

this ruined place, this brokenness
are always the gifts of the ones
who look like us.
This has nothing to do with the monsters.
This has nothing to do with nights.

But has knowing such things ever helped.
The days are just as frightful as nights.
Now anything that looks like me,
and everything that doesn’t –
they are possible ends of me.

Now I must either run away from everything
or must end up loving them all, forgiving them all –
this broken temple of knowledge, this fake shallow sacred unions,
these glorious wretched feelings that won’t let me remain me.
How far should I run. How foolishly should I love.
How do I decide.

“Before we are set in stone” – Nayana Nair

She stood ten steps away from me.
Smiling the sort of smile
I thought I would never see again.
The leaves and their shadows,
the broken light
only for us tonight.
I remember the how I loved her
as the wind rushes to hold her.
She, the mast of our broken ship,
asks me how I have been.

My fingers that ache for hers
hide behind me.
This is the answer that she wants
The simple answer
that can be nothing more than longing.
Longing is all I can feel, that’s how I create one incomplete world after another.
Longings are my wings that break me apart,
are my roads to run away.

My longings have so often been her dark room,
the flash that sees her cry,
her weary thin heart spread on mine,
her food and wrist going cold.

Ten steps away
I told her goodbye
when I could have told her prettier words –
words she would eventually lose faith in.
How tragic it would be.
So before the leaves could fall and dissolve on her shoulder,
make her yet another victim of hope.
Before we are set in stone.
I knew I must make my exit.
She is beautiful
I hope she remains so.
I hope I forget her again,
I hope this time it is easier.

“Escape Plan” – Nayana Nair

the doll with black buttons eyes – i can be that,
if you also don’t mind being one.
we can sit under the shade of broken wooden chair.
we can call this air-conditioned room our world.
the ring on your finger will longer fit you,
these bruises will finally leave your life.
we can wear dresses that carry no scent of rain.
and we will stay forever as girls without love,
girls without heartaches to cure.