“The snow continues to pile as our breath struggles to remember life” – Nayana Nair

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The walls gave birth to new ghosts
and the chill in our lungs
grew as a garden of hyacinth.
Whatever remained of our suns
was now dying with us.
“Give in to the end with grace”
said a detached cold voice on screen.

So in my remaining breaths
I tried to write something wise about life
but somehow it all came back
to those few names
repeated again and again,
it somehow came back to not wanting to die.

I looked at her across the room
as she ran her fingers through the spread of cards
with a smile that still brushed against my heart
like a butterfly with one wing of metal
and other made of light.
It doesn’t make sense that this all has to end.

Someone out there in the snow
continued to sing about heartbreaks
and the glory of this release
and yet what wouldn’t I give
only to feel another despair of love
if that is how she could live a little more in me.

“Undying” – Nayana Nair

The brightest star of my childhood dreams
sits on the set of a sitcom
and tells jokes about me.
He wins few hearts and breaks few guitars-
becomes an artist of some kind.
He fills the screens with the love he only spoke about.
I become a bit more irrational in his stories
sometimes so much, that I feel no wonder
when he forgets who I really am.
It feels natural when I don’t look at him
when I talk of love, or when I don’t talk about myself.
I trace the distance between the dreams that he had
and the person he has become
and find myself stuck between choosing and abandoning
the same person with different heart.
How helplessly we have drifted to a life
where our best doesn’t do much,
where my undying love only causes me pain,
where your eyes filled with dream only makes you blind,
where the death of our love and the tear from my eyes
are the only thing that gets you closer to what you want.

“make me a flower” – Nayana Nair

It snowed all night.
All night I created stars for your eyes.
I bore the weight of the roof
as you slept, cried, ate,
smiled, memorized dial tones,
stared at me like you stare at screens with static,
paused expectantly as you told me the story
about your friend who is filled to brim with sugar
and seems bit odd
when he tries to smile a little bit more always,
filled me with a momentary fear of
whether you saw the corners of my lips tearing up everyday.

I felt again the illusion of love breaking,
its crack trying to find my spine.
Again you ran to me, trying to hold me,
trying to look over all the parts of me
that you don’t understand.

I slept and felt the snow of years settling on me.
I felt your wings fluttering around in my head.
I held the hands of god in my tiny fingers and said with a smile,
“make me a flower, if you can”
“make me something that is beautiful in her eyes”
“give me another sorrow, something simple,
something that can be understood and loved by her”
“let me look at her, without feeling the breaking in my heart”.

“What I Remember(5)” – Nayana Nair

No it is not an escape anymore
because
it is not only me
who is into these addictions of milder kind.
All I want is what everyone already has.
Don’t worry these books and music I get high on
don’t alter my perception of reality
like they used to before.
So I am fine with irrelevant goals of
having one more book to read, one more page to fill up,
and some hours to sit and stare at screens of literature of a cruder form.
They may not constitute the real meaning of life.
But I have not seen anyone who is particularly worried
about missing the real point of life.

. . .   .   .     . 

I know this consumerism and media culture irritates you.
That I look like one of the thousands who sit and demand
to be entertained, to be fed with something other than
the reality of insufficient time and cash.
Would it make me more real, would your gaze become more softer
if I bring up a portion of my life where I was hurt by this world,
when the reality didn’t change just because of my disappointment in it.
That not everyone can be one with the nature and one with society,
when nature is far away from where we are locked,
when society is all about waiting for someone else
to mess up on a grander scale than us.
See that is what I don’t want to talk about.
It is depressing enough to live it.
We can either discuss about how I almost found friend in a fictional character,
found a mirror or even a window in another,
how I do not agree with most reviews,
how I couldn’t get the tragic end of the story out my head.

. . .   .   .     . 

I don’t mind sitting in front immaculate shows of lies
if that is where the my temporary relief of my life is hidden,
at least we are entitled to that much – relief.

“The Usual” – Nayana Nair

Sure I don’t feel hollow for the every minute we don’t speak.
Sure I don’t wait for your messages when I am with friends.
And I don’t feel weak
even when your anger breaks my back
and your love breaks my heart.

You told me something was wrong with me
and this is not how people usually love.
They find ways to be with each other
and miss everything they had together,
even with the distance of few hours.

You told me, so I doubted.
I doubted the way I loved.
I doubted I knew what I feel and how I feel,
but after putting myself under the heat of
uncomfortable observation
and comparing what I was to every girl you liked.

And now I can assure you
that I love you and I miss you
but just not the way you’d like.
For every hero that walks this earth,
that shines on screens and stories
takes up your face
and every quote of love gone good and love gone bad
brings up our image.

But my kind of love knows not how to turn away from
everything I have always loved
(even my loneliness)
just because I love you.
So sorry for not being the usual.
Sorry for being this weak.

“Putting Up Fences” – Nayana Nair

Today, you are more beautiful that I remember you to be.
Today, I feel we are almost invincible.
It is funny to say out loud this word “invincible”,
when life proves again and again
how it is just another consolation to our mind,
a fence to fend off the reality.
So that we might know of happiness
without being burdened by the dark screen of the approaching end.
But today I am ready to put up these fences that I do not believe in,
if it could me help me create a better memory of what life was.
Maybe I can learn to be blind in a different way,
that what I have been till now.
I hope
for this day
you see in me the the love that you always looked for.
I hope you remember me this way
even when this brightness, this happiness
and these fences fade away from the landscape of our lives.

“Conversation” – Nayana Nair

Last night as we talked in the dark,
I saw you hold a fire in your hand
as you sculpted the air
into the memories of people
that won’t leave your mind.
Soon the room became nothing
but a projection of what you see,
and in these moving
and fading screens
of your painted conversation
for a moment
I saw a glimpse of myself
and I thanked the darkness of my life
that let me see,
that let me know,
what I mean to you.

“Screen” – Nayana Nair

I read my words,
and could only see me, as person
walking on the crowded streets
after spending hours of attention
on a screen that blurred the
alphabets and left in my eyes
the only image of me
looking at this screen forever.
I saw someone
who could not bear life.
I wondered when I became a person
only concerned with knowing
this sadness that breathes with me.
I saw someone who I feared and knew
I would become
or I always was.
I became the living shadow
of the ‘me’ that never was.
I read what I write,
and decided never to read them again.
I see what I am,
and decide not see myself again.