“May be the only right in the world” – Nayana Nair

.

I didn’t think that
I ever wanted to do such a thing.
But then it has a sense of it’s own,
a logic that keeps changing its shape-

it is wings of warmth, the fire in heart.
It is the fire that you want to get away from,
the endless trail of ashes that follows you.
It is your thought and voice and life spent away
only for the sake of a fire to burn even more of you.
On some days the fire is too magnificent, too beautiful.
On those days I feel it was right,
may be the only right in the world,
that everything of mine should belong to this light.

Is this how gods are made?
Is this how loves are lost?
Is this how I create a life
that I can’t bear to look at?
But can I abandon it all?

“The only way to be complete” – Nayana Nair

I sit on the cold boulder
and film everything, just like I am told.
I am told, only for today,
I should stop sewing myself up haphazardly,
messing up the live-stream,
and talking about things that will never happen.
I have been told to put a hold
on the wonderful manipulation that does no good
to any effort my mind puts
in fixing things back.

My mind doesn’t like me much, understandably.
And I don’t like the idea of fixing anything- a harder concept.
Maybe that’s why I burn as my mind looks around me.
Maybe I should actually stop, when I am told to
but I don’t want a way out, I don’t want to look.

“i promise not to hurt anyone but me”
“i am fine like this. don’t take my tears seriously.”
“please don’t mind the doctor’s note.”
“please don’t mind the smoke in this room,
it is a temporary solution to my emptiness,
till something worse comes along.”

There is an exit sign that flies far away from me.
There appears a road
that it eats itself up .
There are bridges that I have cried over
and the fires that no longer burn.
Everything of beauty that I had in me
I have lost it here.
I have burnt my body, nerve by nerve,
for the sake of peace and love.
Let me live here
near the ashes of my past selves
near the life that cannot be,
around things that can’t be helped.

“As long as I had love” – Nayana Nair

The air fills my lungs,
and drowns me
and now I remembering things that I shouldn’t
I am remembering every moment of my incomplete death.
Someone cuts a window in my chest,
rips into pieces the words that shouldn’t get out.
A rough skin holds me a bit too long
with a bit too much force,
a bit too much neglect.
“ohhh…it was not love after all“,
I remember thinking this
as I closed my eyes wanting to forget this person
who has taken half of my life, so easily.
“For a brief moment I was loved“,
I wanted to say this at least.
I held on so long only for that sake.
But now I must breathe in the air
that I once thought I didn’t need as long as I had love.

“please leave” – Nayana Nair

please leave.
i am so fed up of this love
that only exists in my head.
my heart is a glacier, my skin a floodplain
and yet
i speak of home and family
as if i am filled with warmth till my brim.
what do i know of love?
what do i know of love, to hold you back?
we have held hands long enough,
it is okay to let go now.
how long are you going to nod along?
your phone has been ringing for an eternity,
it is okay to say the goodbye
that you have been swallowing for my sake.
don’t start loving me
for putting your freedom back on your plate.
i just don’t want to see you
die like this because of me.
i am fed up people giving up on themselves
to love someone like me.
so, please leave.

“A lie for every fear” – Nayana Nair

I walk past houses
that are too silent to be there.
Another drop of tear
lands on my hand.

I dare not stop and look.

I fear I might end up finding
my own home that I had left.

In my eyes I might end up holding
the face of the one
whose sorrow I can’t still bear.

I once lied,
“I will love you forever”.
I fear I might now find the love
that I didn’t have then.

I fear I will ask you
for everything that I do not deserve.

So I lie once again,
this time for your sake-
“though my heart is cold,
love is not the fire I need”.

“Calling” – Nayana Nair

my heart-
i wish for its sake
that i don’t make it through this sadness.
for its sake i don’t want to forget nor forgive.
anyway, the next love
will just be the same story with new actors.
except me.
me-
like always i would give myself up
for lives of those who are better than me
and put my heart on a pedestal for caring too much.

i have a calling it seems-
of turning humans into weapons,
of advertising myself as an ideal victim,
of creating pain with numb hands
of making this pain immortal, an absolute.
this pain
that won’t even destroy me properly.

“Letters from my lover” – Nayana Nair

what is the use of loving you
if you won’t speak less and be less for the sake of my ego,
if you don’t have the proportions or face to brag about,
if you won’t sleep with me,
if you have “anxiety attacks” just when i am having fun
(it is embarrassing, grow up)
if my mom won’t like you,
if you can’t give me the kids that i want,
if a career, a dream is still on your mind,
if you still want friends when you already have me,
if you want to write the stupid poems that make me look bad,
if you won’t consider me your god,
if you continue to live for yourself.

so dear, work hard.
work hard
or you will become useless to me.
there is only so much that i can tolerate for this love of yours.

“Greater Good” – Nayana Nair

The trees are alive today.
They ask me to sing them to sleep for the last time.
I sing for hours
but they refuse to close their eyes.

They ask me how I have been,
not waiting for my answer,
in one breath they ask
about the words they don’t understand,
ask me about the days I do not remember anything about
(there are so many days I have no memory of
while I can’t forget the days I really want to forget),
about the rain that has left us long ago.

Their love for this world that they do not understand-
makes me jealous,
makes me wonder,
if I could love also this world as much as I want to
if I knew a little less,
if I gave up this human heart
that knows nothing but to steal and plead,
to take away and bleed.
But if I knew how to give up myself
for my greater good,
I would have done so long ago.

I can only stay selfish,
act better than what I am,
sing songs to the trees
that will soon be killed for my sake.

“I didn’t mean it” – Nayana Nair

I did mean it all,
I just didn’t want you to know.
My momentary courage-
the result of my long sleepless nights,
let’s agree to call it my foolishness.
For I won’t do anything as preposterous as that ever again.
I won’t expect much from you again,
not because I was at wrong.

Even though it was the only thing I could do,
I regret it so much.
I hate myself for trying to believe in you,
for pushing myself to do the right thing
for your sake.

As always you eat fast and cut me off.
As always you have somewhere to go.
There are too many people whom you must keep happy.
Today I won’t throw everything on my plate for you.
I won’t come to door to see your cold back.

I wish I could go back to the dreams
where I told you about my life, about my pain
and you held me as I cried,
where you took me to the doors of my new life.
But instead all I see in every face is your face.
In your face all I see is my pathetic self
who wanted to lean on someone like you.

“Friends Again” – Nayana Nair

I want to see you before I forget you.
I want to see if I can live without forgetting you.
If I can avoid running away,
if I can see you and not feel anything.

*

My love, my dependence on you,
my feelings-
you slept through all of it
and now you do not know
why I have changed,
do not know how to be with me.

*

Let us be friends again.
I can do that for your sake.
Now it is probably my turn to sleep,
to close my eyes on all that I feel,
all that you are to me.

*

So when I tell you how my love has ruined me
be kind to me and ask me to give up.
Teach me how to give up.
Teach me how to give you up.
And I will be kind enough
not to ever let you know
that you were the cause
of all my confusion and all my suffering.