“Chorus” – Nayana Nair

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Sometimes when I forget to live, to see ahead,
I find myself back again in the house of wood
beside my child made of sand.
He looks like me most of the days,
sometimes she looks like him.
They are often speaking like chorus of brokenness.

Some days they tell me that they are not mine,
that they are not children, that I am not me.
I ask them
then why do I feel the way I do?
why do I hurt the way I hurt?
And hearing this
they become the sand that I can only cry upon.
They don’t come alive
until another time.

But until that, I must be me,
and see things not being themselves.
The sand that was a life a second ago,
it melts, it grows wings
and opens its eyes and burns as sun.

Sometimes it opens it eyes and starts crying in my arms.
It tears my skin, it makes me smile
all my dying parts wake up
but in a world where no such beautiful haunting exists
where I have no reasons to cry
only tears that never stop.

“your hesitations haunt me” – Nayana Nair

there was a gap of few seconds
that felt like hours

which you took to give the answer
that i expected for us – the answer that maybe only i would love.

but the seconds, that you cannot answer for,
have gone away with our comfortable warmth.

why it is that the smallest thing
that makes me question your heart?

why must i find my limit of love
so simply and so soon?

“I won’t be fine” – Nayana Nair

Why does your lie hurt me so
when I know it is a lie?
Why are we ready to act as if
things have gone wrong between us,
when you still love me like you used to,
when I still feel like it was only yesterday
that you changed my life merely by existing.

---

I want to love you and protect you all my life.
Why are you giving up this life we have together.
I am not so strong that I will tell you-
“don’t worry, i’ll be fine”.
I don’t want to say that.
I will break down if you are not here.
For it’s not only my heart that you have
you have everything of me.
If you turn away from me in spite of loving me,
how do you expect me to carry on living with ease?
I do not want ease.
I am ready to loose my sleep over you.
I know what I am promising
believe me as you have done till now,
I have never given you a reason not to.

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Stay with me
even if our love becomes my ruin.
Stay with me
even if it pains you to see me like this.
Stay with me
for all the pains I take for you
and for all the care you have for me-
we can only have so many seconds to be happy
and every portion of my happiness
I want to give it to you.
Stay with me
and let me the only one
who has to carry the burdens of tomorrow.

---

The one who hold my hand
it has to be you,
no one else.

“Glossy Paper” – Nayana Nair

I had too many magazines of glossy paper
with pictures of places better than where I live.
I always bought the one showing better lives.
(what can I possible do or dream with knowing the worse ones)
I would like to say that I remember each beach I saw,
that I remember the colors I never knew sand could take,
that I remember knowing exactly how my footsteps would look like
for they were already there on that foreign land
waiting for me to claim the prints that no one else could take.
But I do not remember all that.
I remember thinking all that, but not what I saw.
Now any picture that I scroll by in seconds
could replace the place that I wanted to see.
That’s probably why I do not bother
with spending my time on images of cheaper paradise
that I now know I cannot walk into just because they exist.

I am a firm believer of words now.
There is a place I read of
and I create it in my mind
particle by particle.
Every place I read is my creation,
that cannot exist without me.
I have all kinds of better world in my mind
and they feel nothing like the ones
I have stopped dreaming about.

“Buses I Miss” – Nayana Nair

Going back home is always difficult.
Everything stands in my way-
the weather, the traffic,
the buses I miss by seconds,
the roads under repair,
the detours I must take,
phone calls and thoughts
that come at inopportune time,
my heart, and you.
For as long as you are not where I am going,
as long as you are not home,
I will only have places to sleep or suffer.
Or a place to write about you.
So if my steps halt and my heart slows
when we part for the day,
keep me with you for a second more
for I have nowhere to go.

“So many things” – Nayana Nair

The jar of broken smiles
sits on my table,
along with the books and records
of my fading writing.
There are so many things
that wither at my touch.
There are so many things
that cannot be brought back to life.
Their graves lie here dreaming to be resurrected.
So many seconds laid waste in my worry
for the future that never will be.

“Blue Sunsets” – Nayana Nair

There is a blue tinted haze
to the memories of you,
that have a habit of changing colors,
of disintegrating,
before get to grasp them.
I have lost many words.
I have forgotten words you once said
and now a silent motion picture
runs in my head,
where your eyes question me,
why I do not understand.
I have lost many days.
I have no recall of the
collection of hours and seconds
that you will never forget.
But still I am at peace
to have you,
and to loose your memories.
To have this blank beautiful room,
that you can paint forever
in the colors you want,
while I look out dazed
into the sunset,
fearing the day
my memories would return.

“A LOT LIKE RUNNING”- Nayana Nair

Boarding that midnight bus

seemed a lot like running.

Just faster and easier.

Less painful for legs and lungs.

Less real than wind on my face

and ground beneath my feet.

It’s just sitting here in comfort

and counting seconds, minutes, days and breaths left.

It’s just looking out,

and knowing a secret.

A secret only my eyes

and occasionally my ears know.

That we are so moving so much faster

without moving an inch.

Like we have changed so much,

without realizing it.