“The last brick is in my heart” – Nayana Nair

In every country, in every city,
on every street
stands a home that could have been ours.
I am a daydreamer like that
As I passed the house with an always crying child,
as I passed the house with the overwhelming smell of incense,
as I passed the house with singing reality shows played on repeat
I only thought of the life we could have there.
In my mind, we fit every house, we fit every role.
Even if our body was stripped of every muscles and every bone
even if we put back together the wrong way,
even if we our heart were to be rearranged,
in my mind we would still fall in love.
That is how we had molded the spirit of our love-
to be stubborn (if not right or just).
But now there are years when I don’t remember you,
and yet there is no sadness in me that is capable of ruining me.
You are gone
and I am trying to grieve for something I don’t particularly miss.
As I pass the houses where our stories used to be staged
I realize they are again the buildings of strangers
that I am supposed to keep my mind away from.
My sadness selfishly keeps uttering,
“I need to love someone, someone who won’t do this to me.
I need to love someone, to believe in love again.”
I reach home with bloody nails and bruised fingers
leaving behind bricks with our names scratched out.

“Flower” – Nayana Nair

I pluck one leaf at a time
from this flower, this script
my life is.
I throw them from bridges
on cold evenings.
I bury them in the soil
that soils their print with time.
I burn them to ashes,
so they won’t smell the same.
I hang them on trees
that will never bear fruits.
To leave this story of mine
everywhere and nowhere.
So that you may find it.
So that you may not find it.
But
I wear the last page, last leaf
with only one word, you name, written,
on my finger
as substitute for you hands
that I can no longer hold.