“Line of Sight” – Nayana Nair

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All the windows in this world
are aligned in one line tonight.
One line of sight is enough to hold
all the meaning and everything there was left to see.

All the places I could have gone to,
all the places that I own just by my passing through
they are but one.
The world is just one person,
whose hands are laced through mine.

The world that was so difficult to approach
had found me finally.
Finally I have spoken the words of love
to the one whom I feared I will never reach.
How simple is this happiness
of walking forward, walking towards this smile.
How simple and beautiful is this feeling
now that I have found it.

How sad are the hours that follow,
the hours that push the world out of my view again.
Yet how comforting is this love
that doesn’t leave my side
even when we have run out of the easiest moments.

“Last to know” – Nayana Nair

I regret to tell you this
that the blue sky that you died for
is not longer blue.
It is painting its face with remains
of our greed, with the colors of our wars.
But it is still sort of fair.
It is trying hard not to choose sides,
not to become the flags that unites
only those whose favorite words are
‘future’, ‘safety’,’money’, ‘greatness’,
while they clutch in their hands the fate of people
they don’t identify with-
‘burden’ they call them.
‘Fear’ is another favorite word of theirs.
They don’t speak much of it, but it is most useful
or at least that’s what I have heard
from the ones we are no longer allowed to call out or even mock.
I have lost every bit of my passive aggressiveness.
Life has become more bearable
now that my skin is not broken for making too much noise,
now that we have learnt to hold each other’s tongue
so that we may not lose more friends than we already have.
I regret to tell you
that your dreams will remains dreams
and you might be one of the last to know
how dreams felt in your eyes,
how tomorrow used to change by effort.

“I don’t want to be right anymore” – Nayana Nair

I wonder
‘me being right’
at what point of time it became synonymous
to finding out that his heart is empty-
my name washed out by the waves of the other girl.
The girl whom he swore is not his type.
“I was right”, I said as my hand trembled with anger and then fear
as I waited for the reply, for the apology, a missed call
from those whom I should not forgive.
But the way my heart is breaking
if only they would tell me that they still love me
I could have held them close to my chest
and thought of them as my family,
as the blood that I couldn’t part with.
I would have learnt to pretend
that I was born with a dagger on my back.

I was right, I understood
as I saw few more pictures not meant for my eyes.
(these days there are so many things that are not meant for my eyes),
as I try to digest the unfamiliar rage in his eyes,
as he breaks and breaks and breaks every moment we had
When I ask him “if should I stay around? if he’d change his mind?”
he tells me he doesn’t know his heart
and walks out into the night.

When I switch on the TV I almost expect to find
my name in red, my body in red
laying on the carpet that he loved
but had to ruin for a good cause, for a greater love.
This me, my death must be side effect of his love.
His love is all that matters now.
His love is not our love.
Our love is an obstacle to the happiness he can almost reach.

She calls me up again
to tell me how to gracefully give up.
I hear him behind her, I feel his despair in her voice.
(Must be true love.)
I hear him hum a song in the background,
a song that I have never heard.
I hear the ruffle of his clothes
that he moved from our life to her home
one betrayal at a time.
I hear what I don’t want to hear,
what I always knew-
they don’t want my forgiveness
even if I gave it for free,
I must mend my life by myself.
No past love will do it for me.

“I can be your helpless angel” – Nayana Nair

I place broken glass of every color at your feet.
I know how you loved the way they looked.
I will re-create every beauty that you asked for,
I will make them incapable of the danger that you fear.
So that you can walk in this unsettling world,
walk over every broken glass.
I can draw a faceless person to walk by your side,
so you don’t have to feel sorry
when you forget their names
or when they forget you.
It is a world you can never be in
but I will draw it anyway,
because this world that I don’t want for you
is the only world that can make you happy.

“Make this one mistake” – Nayana Nair

I want to love you with the sincerity that I don’t have.
I want to want you desperately, even when I am fed up with you.
I want to look at you as if you are my everything
even when I know that you are not.

–

The only thing that stops me
from being the love that I dreamed of being
are my own shortcomings.
I am not patient.
I am not true to my words.
I do not hold an endless sea of love in me,
if anything
you might only find misdirected anger,
petty grudges and resentment in my heart.
I am too sensitive, not in a good or sweet way,
but in an irritating intolerant way.
I am someone who wants all sweet things
but have only bitterness to give back.
In my spare time
I make list of what I lack
not to improve
but so that I have ready excuses when I need them
and I only need them with you.
I need them so I can stay selfish,
so that I can continue to be by your side
and not fall apart with shame.

–

I know you deserve the world
but let my greed win for once,
for this life
close your eyes on everything I do wrong.
My love may not be great or even good enough
but I love you
even when my love for you and want for you
makes me the worst person in my own eyes.
That must count for something.
Make this one mistake for my sake,
let me have you for this life.

“My Bitter Taste” – Nayana Nair

All my roads and plans are lined up
side to side.
And on every path I take
I see myself giving up sooner or later
and the moment I give up
I become the same person I was
before the I took these steps.

Being the same person I am
used to comfort me once.
But now
when all I hear around me is
how I need help,
how I leave a bitter taste in every kiss,
how I have a tendency to be painfully unrealistic,
how my efforts make other uncomfortable.
Now I cannot remain the same
when they have shown me how wrong I am.

But my trying hard to change
makes me hate myself that much more.
I ask myself “what do I really want?”
and I feel pathetic with the only answer that I hear
“I am ready to want anything and be anything,
that can make someone truly love me.”

“Far from Ideal” – Nayana Nair

I cannot ask you why your mind is so twisted.
I cannot ask why you are not fair.
Maybe your situation didn’t allow you to be ideal
and that’s why you don’t care.
So I will stop now.
I will stop asking questions that you need not answer
because there is a lot more to us, a lot that we have suffered
that we can neither speak of, nor expect to be understood.
So you can continue to fight with your darkness
and I will continue fighting mine.
And if we find each other on opposite sides
lets forgive each other for being who we are.

“Effortless” – Nayana Nair

On the other side of this puddle,
where my feet is caught,
is the ocean of joy
in which I wandered
only to be caught in the hook of the sadness
that slips into my wound so effortlessly
that the pain felt like love,
because it felt like the only thing that I could call as mine.

“Not Love” – Nayana Nair

The mountains I must scale
and the currents I must swim against
are all in you.
Love has nothing to do with
me wanting to know the storm you have become.
I find myself the reason
of your flooded cities of hope,
the chaotic streets of your mind.
I refuse to leave you alone in this disaster,
even after knowing
that my departure is the only way to
quieten the commotion in your life.
Love has nothing to do with my selfish wish
to stay by your side.

“Uncomfortable Reality” – Nayana Nair

I remember the conversations
that I had with you
even before we met.
How you always gave me answers
that I wanted to hear.
You always told me the words
that could help me sleep better.
And though you are not
the gentle soul I dreamed of.
But even I am not the pitiful girl
that I thought I was.
And all you are
is so much better
than all you could be.
And I realize at the core of your words, that
pierce and break my delusions,
is the reality-
that I was never comfortable with
until you stood by my side
to face it with me.