“Once everything could be salvaged by commonplace miracle” – Nayana Nair

.

I would be busy scanning the shelves,
my hands clutching
a carelessly torn paper
that mentions in your clear writing
all that is essential
to nurture tiny special things
like childish loves and high-flying songs.
I would walk down the aisle
to the music of wedding march,
to the noise of tiny wheels ready to dismantle,
unable to find anything to save anyone.
The remedies for a body
that has known the laws of gravity too closely,
the bottles that can hold happiness gifted by visiting dreams,
the stickers of cracks to be pasted on the dams holding us back-
they are no longer sold here.
Like a typical maid running out of a ball,
with no prince, no magic, no new fate tailing her shadow
with my back adorned by lights of structures
that now only sell numbness
and the promise of easy breaking down,
I face the streets that are oblivious to their own dissolving.
I face your absence once more
to remind myself why nothing works anymore.

“a proper life” – Nayana Nair

the metal melts on my tongue.
this must be the fever that everyone warned me against.
now i will never know how to die properly.

i used up every drop i could find on this planet
to make the broken trees in me grow.
and there are so many,
so many skeletons with stunted growth.

i read we need not only the sun, but also the leaves, the green
to make something that can fill our stomach.
that light by itself can only gift hope .
how long can one live on hope?
just long enough to hate everyone
who has a piece fleshy fruit stuck in their teeth.

the only way to live properly i am told
is to become the the tailcoat of someone better than me.
i must make someone’s life easy,
must become a photocopy machine for their blood,
must cry silently into the sink as i clean the dishes at night
to live a proper life.

but it is too late i guess,
i have lost the plan i was told to follow obediently,
the only color that remains on my skin are the ones i was born with,
the unflattering shape of my body
won’t be bought with the coins of love in any shop,
my finger, my unshapely hands have become un-holdable.

the adjectives, the rumors, the sad future of mine
they falls like pieces of metal on my ears everyday
and yet they are not the words i can say, or accept.
these word, this metal melts in my mouth
they say i will die a sad death,
that i will die as i have lived – by myself.

“The Scale of 1 to 10 (part 1)” – Nayana Nair

#the feelings that I can’t own

The nature of regrets that I have in my heart, the flowers that grow at the end of this knife, the watches that have run out of battery but pretend to have stopped time. I have so much space in me for things like these. I have so many curiosities that I can put up a shop with no intention to sell.

     I don't like my mind right now
     Stacking up problems that are so unnecessary
     Wish that I could slow things down
     I wanna let go but there's comfort in the panic
     - "Heavy", Linkin Park

     Distant lies - shallow dreams, confused ideas 
     Once our hopes - now they anchor all our fears 
     -"Lie", Arco

     Just by being next to you
     I was happy
     Don’t take even that truth
     And make it into a bad memory
     -"Last Goodbye", Akdong Musician

I have sketches of you, a face for every day that you have shared with me. I wonder if you would walk into this shop with another beloved of yours. Would she buy them all? Would you let me sell it to her?

     I loved you a lot
     Even if you say otherwise
     I didn’t want things to end this easily
     -"Go Away", Yong Jun Hyung

     But the thing that we all learned at some point was how
     To step on someone, to catch them, to erase them, to hate them
     -"Life", RM

This is not a post-you fear and post-abandonment feelings. I think I have felt that with you all along. Something about us, the way everything about us was a secret of sorts – you only told stories that I could never repeat.

     And I cried for you
     Like a widow cries at her lover’s grave
     You haunted me through my stinging nights
     And aching days
     - "Divers & Submarines", Passenger

I knew this all along.
I knew all your lacks, and I knew how you would give up on me rather than give up on all parts of you that stand between us.
I knew it, but I wanted to be wrong, just this once.

     Well I clung to you
     Like cat hair clings to a woollen shirt
     You needed me, like a wedding dress needs dirt
     -"Divers & Submarines", Passenger

     I bet you know just what you're doing
     You're not the type that's used to losing
     First, you build me up, then with just a touch
     Leave me here in ruins
     -"Dazed and Confused", Ruel

I hid from you all the parts of me, that could suffocate you – my love, my possessiveness, my confusion, my fear, my irrational suspicions created by most rational observations, my objections, my complaints, my hurt.

     We wanna be right
     But always wrong
     Were we born to be wrong?
     Is life something like that?
     …
     We tryna be bright
     But always dark
     We still don’t know if we’ve lived to the extent that we can
     -"Life", RM

But now, when I no longer have the obligation to hide anymore.
I end up lying, trying to protect you from the harsh words of this world, making everyone believe that you were lovable even when you were not. It would break my remaining heart for you to be hated, even when you deserve to be hated.

     What happens if I open my eyes, my eyes?
     Will I ever get my head right, head right?
     -"Dazed and Confused", Ruel

     I keep dragging around what's bringing me down
     If I just let go, I'd be set free
     -"Heavy", Linkin Park 

     Until the time that we die perfectly we can’t protect everything
     -"Life", RM

“Erased” – Nayana Nair

I dreamt of a cold day,
of a gray sky,
of your warmth dissolving in air,
of your smile being erased.

–

I lay on your bed
surrounded by, covered in
all the clothes
you won’t ever wear.
I saw myself crying,
refusing to eat or sleep
waiting for a new world to be created
or to leave the world that I am in.

–

But eventually
I woke up,
I cleaned up my room,
I threw out everything
that mattered to me.
I went to shop
for a stomach that knows hunger
a heart that can forget,
a dream, a life without you.
I thought I loved you more than this.

“The More I Hear” – Nayana Nair

The songs buzz in my head.
It’s only your voice in that song this time
that stops me from moving away.
This noise again
that feels like love.
For I have already been acquainted with it
in another sweet disaster,
when someone told me
I was worth more than what I think of.
And many have said the same to me
when their actions told me otherwise.
And the more I hear it
the more cheaper these words become.
I can probably buy them from the same shop
that sold me self-hatred,
that sold me shame.
If I earned enough good points in your eyes
maybe then I can finally afford everything
that others have and I don’t.
Then maybe I will no longer have to live my life
ignoring the contempt in everyone’s eyes
that silently tells me that
it is my fault to be someone they do not like.

“Only Me” – Nayana Nair

Stay here with me.
Everyone else has forgotten you dear.
Only me,
it is only me that carries you everywhere it rains,
everywhere the Sunday morning starts with empty table and aching heart,
everywhere the number blinking in my phone is not yours.
It’s only me
that wakes up in this nightmare of life
clutching what should have been your hand,
that walks into every shops that would have caught your eye.
It isn’t easy to walk into stores
and think of your absent giggles
as my only future that would never arrive.
It isn’t easy
but I can do it.
I can keep a space for you
everywhere I go,
I can keep aside an extra plate for you.
I can live as if you are here
if only you’d stay hidden with me.
They have forgotten you dear,
their thoughts are scared to linger around graves.
It is only me that calls out your name.

“Coffee Shop” – Nayana Nair

I am sipping my 27th cup of coffee
waiting for the shop to get crowded,
so people will not eye me with suspicion or pity.
So I can be in company of people
who have nowhere to go, like me.
For whom, home is just a place you run away from.
I wait for the sun to set.
I wait for the sounds of your approaching footsteps.

I see you make your way
to the table behind me.
I don’t have to look, to know it’s you.
I know you much more than I should.
We have lived together for too long.
And you wouldn’t know me
even if you saw my face.
You have only known yourself,
your world knows nothing but you.

And slowly the seats around you
are filled one by one.
And empty chairs
are being drawn and dragged around you.
And with these strangers
I hear my stories from
your mouth that seem like
the only warmth in their life.
I hear every word you say,
I hear it everyday
waiting at this shop.
To hear, if you ever came to miss me.
Ever said my name with a melancholy
of losing something precious.
If in the stories you tell,
if you could still see me.
If for a moment I could hear you utter word “love”
with my name in its periphery.

I do not love you.
I’m not here to claim you back.
Not here to prove my eternal undying love.
I am just waiting in this cold
to know
that when I sold you my life,
when you used up my story
what you did with me?
Am I there in that heart?
Or at the bottom of some frozen lake?
I need to start looking for it.
And I don’t know where to start.