“Braid Your Love” – Nayana Nair

I couldn’t help but to love you,
this you,
that from your darkness pushed me away,
tried to save me from my choices.

***

When I told you that I loved you
for your selfless honestly,
you made up your mind to leave.

***

You told me as you packed your bag
that all honesty is not selfless,
that while you pushed me away
you knew that I would love you even more.

***

As a goodbye you braided my hair
with the flowers of your tear.
You left me with a letter,
when you robbed me of your shadow,
with ink dipped in concern,
saying that you wanted me to be better than
your second chance,
a daily pill to forget what you are,
a shoulder to bear your burden.
That only by rejecting the luxury
of being loved unconditionally,
could you ever learn to love
and see me as a human
who can bleed by loving too much.
That your leaving might be the only true gesture
that shows what you feel for me,
that it is the only thing you can do for me.

“Collecting Myself” – Nayana Nair

These four walls that cuts us off from the world
puts me again in that same position that I dread.
My weakness that I once thought I had cast away
is holding onto my fingers again.
If only the world had not abandoned me here with you.
I could have found some comfort in its words-
“you are worth better” or “you are happier alone“,
then I could avoid this hurt that has already risen in me.

~

As usual you look out of the window.
You have always been good at ignoring my presence and my feelings.
I have always envied you for being like this,
for being able to stand your ground, being sure of hatred
and not looking back at what didn’t work out.
But not me.
I believe too much in second chances-
the second chances that I never got.
I am again that person
who is thinking up of words to say
to make you stay,
trying to find a promise that I have not uttered yet
that will make you realize that I cannot be replaced in your heart.

~

But there are days that you have let me down
and days where I have not been enough for you-
the memory of which all my tears have not been able to wash away.
So I collect my belongings and myself
to get out of this painful isolation with you,
this fruitless attempt of our hopeful friends
who wish to see us happy and together again.
I no longer believe love
to be an effort of one person
to latch onto the other who wants to leave
who always has a better plan
and a better person in mind to move toward.
I no longer have the heart to love you anymore.

“One Despair” – Nayana Nair

Even though I fed myself so many lies and called them dreams,
but I guess I still cannot call them lies.
Because though stupid,
the innocence that once made me believe
in all kinds of kind future
and made me think that I won’t have to choose just one
or get the one I choose-
that innocence will always remain the most beautiful thing I had.
But I also cannot hold me blameless
since all the space that my imagined future had taken,
the void I created by my own hands
by feeding myself hope made of smoke,
soon became another me, always asking me questions,
questions I am too scared and ashamed to answer.
I betray myself one second
and next second I am my own savior.
I get fooled and disenchanted too easily.
If it was only one despair that ate me from within
it would still have been more tolerable.
I would still have been able to fool myself
for a bit more longer,
and feel this pain a little less.

“New Limitations” – Nayana Nair

I tended to all the brokenness
that now remained on your skin
after they found you at places
where they didn’t want you to be.
I hoped it was only your skin
that was red and sore.
The more silent you sat,
the more my heart worried.
As you tired to smile for me
I felt that maybe I was also a strain on you,
even me sitting here was more than what you could handle.
I felt that even if I sat here all night beside you
I would only be an obstacle in your way
to reconciling with your new limitations,
to return to what you were.

Is it selfish of me to come to you,
look after you
only for the sake of having you as I liked you?
So that I don’t have to wonder how to walk around you
as if you were most fragile broken glass
that I didn’t want to be around,
that if I fix you somehow
things would get better.
Then we would only have to think about
where to go for brunch, what to buy, what to watch
rather than sitting here
and second-guessing our words and action.
Rather than feeling helpless and inadequate
in handling this pain
that would be easier to forget if it was not in the face
of the one we love.

“New Organ” – Nayana Nair

All the words that I have gulped down
are still inside me,
never digested.
They have found a space for themselves-
A new throbbing organ that I cannot name,
since I have never named my organs,
someone else always does it for me
(does it for all of us)
and tells me through fading words
of second-hand textbooks
how is it supposed to feel to be a human,
how I am just a complicated machinery
and why my heart can’t possible think or want.

“Divide in Two” – Nayana Nair

This day of unimportant advancement
will probably be the one that we will first forget.
Our hearts will pretend to be sad
to have forgotten all such beautiful harmless days.
We move into the next coming second,
dividing ourself in two.
The one left in past
always has the best,
always suffered the worst,
always surrounded by enviable beauty,
always the hero, the victim, the matyr.
While we go on forward selfishly
only taking what we really are.
Selfishly leaving the parts of us
that can be made glorious
only because if they are left behind.

“Becoming This Person” – Nayana Nair

. When the pain hits my face
.                                                                 (those hands used to the have the softest touch)
. my skin would have broken up in the ugliest ways,
.                               if the same hands wouldn’t have rushed
.                               to cradle the crying me
.                                             without losing a second.

.                                                         The pain was gone as soon as it came.
.                           This skin has a way of healing
.                            that seems to me as
.                                                an unfaithfulness,
.                                                a betrayal.
.       As if, even my body
.       didn’t want to leave any evidence
.                           that could justify my tears and my mistrust.

. I have again invited the pain, the consequence
. of being “broken too many times”.
.                                                    The word “broken”
.                                                               seems like a shiny ornament
.                                                               that is meant to distract my eyes,
.                                                                                                                                 my eyes
.                                                                                      that are anyway not capable
.                                                                    of seeing things for what they are.

. I no longer trust my mind
.                            that doesn’t know
.                                            the reason for the anger (that I awakened in others),
.                                            the disappointments
.                                                      written in neon lights on the darkening faces,
.                                            that doesn’t have any account of how I ended up becoming
.     a person
.                            this bad,           this wrong,                 this fragile,                 this cruel.

“Welcome Back” – Nayana Nair

Once you go to other side,
you are not welcome back.
And even if second chances grant you entry here,
you will eternally be on parole,
under the watchful eyes of others.
In this bright world, I live
as a prisoner
where my sins are my new name.

“Map” – Nayana Nair

I lose memory of the nights
when you crept up the walls of my life.
When you planted the seeds of doubt
and made my each step wary
and my words full of fear.
One day I woke up knowing
that I was not me, but you.
I was living the second chance of your life.
I could no longer make the decisions
that I want to make.
I just had to stay clear
of all your mistakes.
That was my map.
Everything else,
even me,
seemed hazy and inconsequential
in front of your plans.
But how long can we bear
the weight that no one put on us,
that we stole from their stories and silent sobs.
How much of our life is ours?

“My Liberation” – Nayana Nair

The first half of my life
was spent following the lines drawn by other
and second half spent on searching and choosing
the people who will draw those lines for me.
My liberation didn’t come as a cloudburst
but only as shower.
It only came as the the control of smaller
insignificant parts of greater machinery of life
that continues to  ignore my wish and my will.