“As if out of a dream” – Nayana Nair

.

The leaves flew back to their trees.
The fruits became never eaten, never ripened, never born.
The papers on my desk forgot how to exist for themselves.
For a moment I feared maybe this is how
the past love, the healed hurt returns.
But it wasn’t so.

That day, on that bleak morning
you looked at me
and my heart learned to believe again.
My lips reached out to learn your name.
Your name, as if out of a dream, settled on my shoulders
and told me I can rest.

On that morning, that should have been like the hundred others,
I learnt that in spite of my bitterness and my disappointment
I wanted to believe in this world.
And even in my denial I was waiting for a moment like this.

A moment in which my broken and incomplete heart
is returned to its original state of trust, as if by a miracle,
by your gentle touch of understanding.
I feared calling it love, when I knew that it already was.
No other word would suffice.

“Like no other” – Nayana Nair

.

The food tastes better today.
The light today falls just right into me.
“This would be a day like no other”, I thought
as someone wished me a happy day on radio
before playing a song that shredded my remaining patience
into bright bitter words that fit me better.
And now armed with an unreasonable and off-putting frown
I walk towards the house where my love lived.
I knew on a day like this
she would still be somewhere far away from every world of mine
and my knocks would bounce back
from everything of hers she didn’t want.
I stood there talking to my friends
who differ from me only in the fact
that they don’t have to walk this world in hope and fear of change.
I pick another flower which will definitely end with
“she remembers me, not“
“she will return, not“
“she is here, not“
As my shoulders melts to fit
the memory of her outline,
the song changes to something that refuses to end with
“i will forget her eventually“
“i will be fine like everybody else“
“i will find what it means to be me, by myself“
and something about that was relieving.
The false belief that I will be stuck in time
even if it was with a memory of her, with false hopes
sounded better than hearing the approaching steps
of the day that will cure me of her.

“Reduced” – Nayana Nair

One of these days
I might just stop loving you
and that might just break me.
But I feel
I might be less cold,
less reckless,
and less pathetic
in that sort of breaking.
I want to be reduced to myself for once.
For once I don’t want to carry around
the magnificence of undelivered love on my shoulder
and stand outside stores with doors too small.
I dream to become the whole of my skin
rather than just the wounds that hurt.
I think only this dream can save me,
make something peaceful out of me,
make me someone harmless.
One of these days I will look at you
and nothing in me would ache,
at least not because of you.

“Fossil” – Nayana Nair

Drop by drop the wax fills
the bucket of broken butterflies.

I am falling into another sleep,
into another death that is warm,
that embraces me like no lover ever has.

I feel the pain in my wings, and unlike other days
I try to think that this will never pass.
That I will remain like this, with a bit of pain always there
in my shoulder blades, under my ribs, aching for a memory that floats
above my body, above my existence.

Someone holds my hand and I let them.
I was always afraid of living and dying alone.
I guess there are many like me.

Years from now they will find us
and probably write stories
about how we loved each other even in death.
As they look at our almost ruined and almost saved faces
they won’t know how we died heartbroken,
how we held onto each other
but never dared to look at each other
or ask the names we had started to hate.
How our skins melted into each other only because
we had nowhere else to be.
That even as light broke free from our eyes
we didn’t want to look like failure.

“Eavesdrop” – Nayana Nair

From my empty room,
from the edge of my personal cliff,
I looked into the windows of strangers,
looked over their shoulder at texts they write,
looked at the pages where their bookmark rests,
silently waited at the edge of my chair
trying to overhear responses to the big questions.

And all I have known by prying so hard
is that there is nothing there.
Nothing in the text that could pass for shorthand.
The same book rests on the same table for years,
serving only the role of a carefully thought out accessory.
No question is big enough to be carefully considered.
No relationship is important enough to be held to heart.
That I was foolish to believe otherwise till now.
That I am putting myself on another path to heartbreak
if I do not believe in the night that I see.
I must unlearn the way I have lived
to find a place to belong.

In between the cold beginning and cruel ends
that are the parentheses of our lives,
there is nothing for me to hang on to.
But it helps to know
that there are plenty of empty rooms in this painful smaller eternity,
that I need not kill myself over an emptiness so common.
And it is really difficult to feel alone once I know that.

“Red Valley” – Nayana Nair

every red flower
that couldn’t bloom,
that was denied a spring,
now grows inside us.

we breathe to keep them alive
so their sky remains blue
and they might know
what tomorrow means.

there is a weight on our tiny shoulders
to carry voices that were once locked in vacuum,
to do everything right,
to build greenhouses by our words and intention.

but we don’t need broad strong shoulders
to carry this weight, to keep this valley alive.
we only need to unlearn
every cruelty we have ever been taught.

“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.

“Burnt Dreams” – Nayana Nair

My night melts into dreams of you
and even when I loose my dream
I loose my sleep,
the night stays with me.
The broken strand of hair on my shoulder
could have been your tear
if it had not passed through this night
I live with,
if it was not born in the fragile dream
that you are.

“Who seem to know a lot” – Nayana Nair

Nothing scares me more than people
who seem to know a lot about world,
who seem to know every answer
to every problem.
Especially when the answer
is that the weight and blame of this
collapsing world
only lies on shoulder of few.
And answers mostly revolve about how
not every one is equal.
I urge those people to make their homes in these
boxes of labels that they use as weapon
against people who were just living their own life
and live their life avoiding any thing
that might break their illusion of self-righteousness.
For that is all they have.
Nothing scares me more
than a person who thinks
what he thinks is best for the world,
who thinks that emotions and lives
are disposable things,
in front of the grand plan he has
for himself and this world that only he supposedly owns.

“Be With Me” – Nayana Nair

My pain sits on my shoulder, clings to my neck

and sings stories of years that defined me.

How it had no one else but me.

It was so fierce, yet so fragile.

I felt the urge to protect it.

From anything. From everything.

I wanted to protect it from every cure.

I wanted it to be with me. To be a part of me.

I felt I would be a little less me

if it left my body.

I didn’t mind this pain decaying my body.

I didn’t mind it’s echoing cries and lament.

I just wanted it to be there always.

But when pain decided to leave me,

I felt that life has left my body.

I cried realizing that it was never a part of me.

I don’t think I cried cause I missed pain.

I cried for there is nothing in my life I can be sure of.

Not even pain.