“I’m all for sad feelings. I’m all about hard love.” – Nayana Nair

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All I could do
was to wait
for the stone of doubt
and my rippled heart
to settle.

But my surface never knows peace
the veins of leaves, the claws of birds,
they touch me and demand an expression
and I play along. I give way to them.

I am learning giving way, giving in
is what people call love.
And the core of what I am, therefore,
doesn’t believe in love.

The tired core of me would have probably
believed in love if it was not so easy to get,
a love that was never a win-win situation,
that demanded a bit more hurt,
that asked me to see someone outside of myself.

“Named after stars” – Nayana Nair

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And if we are to delete, to remove,
to erase and whiten the papers
that are not a part of our hearts anymore,
then hand me the forms you want burned,
the words you wish you never heard,
and I’ll help you with your share of forgetting,
just like how you helped me memorize my own name once.

If we are to walk through the burning towns,
that we created with our own hands, which we named after stars,
to find something that is not poisoned by our time together,
then I’ll do the walking for you.

In a room filled with light
I imagine myself breaking apart, it will happen for sure,
but it doesn’t pain me yet.
But I fear the tears that will find your eyes,
the marks of flowing rivers, the civilization of sorrow
settling and flourishing on your face,
if you were to fall in love with something that is already lost.

I fear your loving nature.
I fear your heart to work for the impossible.
I fear you might see our past and mistake it for our future.
If you try to protect me even in our end,
I fear I will be left with no way out.

“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”.

“50 goodbyes a day” – Nayana Nair

There are no dances waiting for us,
no innocent moments of sunlight,
no darkness or headlights striking our windows,
nothing worth the wait.
We are stranded here in this life.
We are stranded on a planet
far away from our home-
a home that becomes more and more beautiful,
the more we are convinced there is no way back.

Here the days are longer than our lifespan combined.
Here we record 50 goodbyes to ourselves a day.
The air, the hurricanes,
the rain, the smile,
this peace of mind
are all just luminescent chemicals
that delivers more than its promise
of a near death exhilaration.

The rainbow of lies is our constant sky
the friend we cannot live without.
It is the only thing
that helps us live with the dust of betrayal
that settles on the clothes left out to dry-
another thing we much dust away and forget,
another thing we must do to be called a “good sport”.

I sit here knitting another version
of my beautiful glorious past,
another tribute to the world filled with rare ordinary
and you sit across me
complaining about what the world has come to
as you paint my brain to match the new you-
one less insecurity in this perfect world.

“i am so fond of you” – Nayana Nair

as you melt your heart into oceans
i fear my arms betray me sometimes,
sometimes they go numb,
they surrender at the thought of your warmth.
when you tell me of your love
as i ache for another,
i want a part of me to ache for you as well.
when you settle for being my comfort rather than my love,
i wish i had loved you instead.
but we are selfish dear
i cannot give up
just as you can’t.
we wait to be seen by the one we can’t seem to reach.
we wait because that’s the only answer we have.
we try to forget the love that we can have but don’t want.
i am fond of you,
so forget me if you can.
i can’t bear to see my pitiful self
in you, i can’t bear to drag you down to my hell
only to leave you alone.

“Surely, I will love you” – Nayana Nair

The memories I burnt away
have turned into spirits, into thoughts
that hold me back from naming and keeping this happiness
that sits at my doorstep, waiting for my love.
And though the shadows of my past are tied to my legs,
though they rattle on empty roads
and never let the the dust of my life settle.
But ‘it is not so bad’ is also a sentence
that I have learnt to say with ease
and I sometimes even mean those words as they leave my mouth.
For there is a doorstep where a heart like yours
waits for me to heal, your wait makes the plant of trust
grow in my heart again.
Every morning I find myself, my lips
a bit closer to the the words
that only you deserve to hear.

“Wrong Answer” – Nayana Nair

My guarantees and my assurances
do not come from my own voice,
do not reflect even a iota of my feelings.
They are not my words
and won’t ever be mine
even if voice them a million times.
But you have to make do with these promises,
the same way I am settling for yours.
I cannot say “love me, i’ll make you happy“.
I am the wrong answer,
I have to lie, I have to cheat
to be chosen.

If I was honest, if I loved you for real,
I would have told you this:

“my words, these empty castle hallways,
the mountains that never answer back,
a mirror lost and flooded with darkness,
the habit of taking up, stealing beautiful names
the thrill of forgetting,
every kind of messed up love,
a sweeter hate to forget reasons
they are all yours,
but you are better without them”

I must hate you a lot,
to hold your hand like this.

“Meant to be lost” – Nayana Nair

Drops of your sweet memories
are settled on my heart,
on this morning, in this world
where I was meant to be lost.

It is a relief that
you are here in some form,
that I cannot truly forget you.
Thankfully, you cannot come from past
to ask me whether I have been doing well.
I am not sure what I would do.
Would I lie to ease your heart?
or
Would I lie to hurt you even more?

I do not want to remember the life
that I am living.
I have not changed a bit you see.
Denial was my preferred drug.
Maybe I am able to love you now in some way
because you are not the reality that my heart can’t take
but another excuse to keep my eyes closed.
I can love you now
since you are not here with me
to be hurt by what I am.

“Can’t Choose Something Better” – Nayana Nair

You stand in the middle of every green field.
You stand in front of every road, every direction
that promises me something better,
a world
where the thoughts in my mind can finally settle.
But because you are here at the beginning of everything
I cannot find in myself the will
to begin anything new
and to leave you behind.

“Murky Waters” – Nayana Nair

As I drop one stone after other
into the murky waters
with dust that never settles.
I find sounds in the air, forming words
which were almost lost under the blankets of pain.
I do not try to find the one who
cried out these words.
I just add them to the stones
that are destined
to be overlooked, buried or drowned.
I throw the stones that must be thrown.
So that this dirt, that my heart
never settles.
So that these sorrows can find
a home and a reason
to grow old and die.