“How do you want to be saved?” – Nayana Nair

.

I crawled to the window
in my dress torn by the claws and cries
of people who live in my nightmares.
They like clean living rooms, dark courtyards,
and cars with slashed tires sitting in their garage.
They have
“broken hearts” written down in forms as their identity
and broken chandeliers swept under their bed.
They crouch down and look at me
as the broken lights shine red,
as I see myself bleed beautiful rivers,
as my silent scream become winds, become ripples,
becomes the face that will forever make me cry.
They smile and ask me
“What do you wish? How do you want to be saved?”
while someone else burns the bed that I am crushed under
and asks me “Is this the what the warmth felt like in your mind?”
They drag me out into a forest,
where under the brightest tree of hope,
they stuff darkness into my throat, into my mind
and ask me “Do you still feel empty?”
They are unreal and of unsound mind.
They tell me living in me makes them so.
They wave goodbye to me with a smile,
offering me a sweet candy
for my silence and understanding
It is raining when I open my eyes.
I breathe in the world
where bleeding and burning is irreversible,
where it would lead to an end of some kind.
I crawl to the window
in my torn dress and my exhausted skin
and find myself staring
at people who used live in my nightmares,
people who look more real that the living me.
People who now own more than just my dreams.

“Enough for me” – Nayana Nair

She climbed the stairs
never pausing for a second.
I knew what a second of thought could do.
How it could pull back her steps
and let out her screams.
I knew this is something she didn’t need.

She climbed the stairs
and walked towards me.
Beside me, not exactly near,
steps away perhaps she stood.
And that was enough for me.

Enough for me to not know of loneliness.
Enough for me to not feel fear
what all I could never be.
She stood where I could grow if I chose to,
where I could happily fall apart
and she would never leave.

But I also knew that meaning of this distance
which she hoped I didn’t see.
Being her mirror, as I looked at her from this distance,
I realized this carefully measured out space-
how beautiful and perfect
and safe it was.
She always stood far enough
so her heart wouldn’t rely on me to beat.

“Living some sort of life” – Nayana Nair

His face lit up
with the death of every colorful explosion in the sky.
He hates this sky on other days
(among other things).
Today he loves it, this darkness,
this crowd, even me.
(Maybe not me,
but it doesn’t mean anything to me now.

But in moments like this
I am reminded of the “me” who would have wanted his love
or at least be part of the world that can be loved.
The ‘past me’ shakes off my hand
and stands there looking at him
as if he is her sky,

but only finds the signs of deaths
that have nothing spectacular about them.
I stand there
looking at my sadness, his sadness
breathing the air and living some sort of life
for once.)

He stands there looking at the sky
through my silence, through my awe,
awe at his simple happiness.
(How long has it been
since he has loved anything with his
breaking heart.)

He stands there looking at the sky
even when curtain of stars resurface,
even when the screams of children dissolve.
He stands there abandoned by the world
and yet happy.
(I stand there abandoned by him,
by myself
and yet happy)

“Essential” – Nayana Nair

superthumb

No suffering is born encased in a bubble of silence,
and maybe that’s why my throat hurts as I try not to scream.
But even when the world forgets to pay me any heed
and to all the parts I want to hide.
I continue to mistake the faults I am hiding
as the some essential part of who I am.
I mistake hiding as the purpose I was born for.

“Picture Book” – Nayana Nair

books

Leafing through the pages of my picture book of dreams,
he smiled to himself and said to me-
I can make all of them come true for sure,
you can fill more pages, you can dream more.
The mirror with my face
lost in the light,
lost in thought of love soon to arrive,
while I wait not knowing how to calm myself down.
Where I hold a hand that touches me
like a rare cloud he found on ground.

The roads all lighted,
the words all sweet.
Our heartfelt smiles
at the end of the reel.

 

Going through my picture book of dreams
I smile at him, for not knowing better.
Not knowing that all I want
are for these dreams to die on these pages.
Cause I see the drop of tear that
glistens in the mirror
when my love threatens to leave,
forces me again to change
asks me why I can’t get rid of this mess,
why can’t I be calm again.
Me, wondering how to act
like a gentle cloud that I am not
not wanting to be genuine,
when I get love only when I am not me.

The road all lighted
The words all sweet.
The world going silent
under my scream.

“Bubble” – Nayana Nair

bubbles-wallpaper-45

There is so much
that the world doesn’t care for.
If we were to care for every thing that
has caused pain to every person,
we may never have been able to live happily
ever in our life.
And there would be a black fog
of borrowed sadness, that will be
the only thing we breathe.
We may cry a few tears of sympathy,
but after those few minutes
we live our life, as we have done till now.
It’s the only thing we can do.
Though it may seem selfish,
but I guess it is both tragic and good
that the cries and scream of this world
never break through
the bubble of our own happiness.
And our own sadness and joy
is bound by our own bubble.