“A Dull Reflection of Hope” – Nayana Nair

In a dull handheld mirror
that had yet to be broken,
I looked at myself
and realized
that someone is dying inside me.

I didn’t know how to accept this,
so I solved every question in my math textbook.
I learned to eat more and sleep late.
Stared at my wrist for hours.
Pretended to sleep fearing questions.
Tried a bit of every sin
and waited around to be damned.

I felt a constant urge to break someone
so this world could be little less happier.
But death claimed my heart
before I could do that.
So now I write “love” on your tongue
without knowing what it means.

“On the saddest cloud” – Nayana Nair

Even when I insisted
that I am fine
without relying on you.
Even when I tried to keep
only my best version in your eyes.
When I said I can solve my problems
and if I can’t, I will learn to live with them;
to never trouble yourself
with what I suffer or how I suffer.

You told me I no longer have to live like this,
to not fear dependence in love.
You lied that I am no longer alone.
You liked to be a promise
and nothing more.
You wanted to be believed
as much as I wanted to be never hurt.

So this wingless me
left my land to fly with you,
to go to a place where you can breathe better.
And you realized the effort it takes
to carry another person pretty late.
Now I am stuck in a cloud
and you are somewhere in this vast sky.
You can give me only few hours of your day.
There is a life that is meant for you
and I shouldn’t come in your way.

I live on such crumbs of you
that my heart wilts one petal,
one dream at a time.
Love can now no longer live
in a heart like mine.

“Small Human” – Nayana Nair

Our now
and forever
will be just like
our today.
Though I am a small human
who can never jump across the divisions of time
and reach to the you in the sadder future,
to comfort you and assure you of my love.
I know I am helpless like that.
I know there are many things that I am not capable of,
there are many things that my love cannot solve.
But I will keep you in my thoughts always.
I will keep it in my mind
that how easily you are hurt
and how it is not your fault.
I will become someone
who can love you without giving you pain
so that your sadder future never arrives.

“Passing Amusement” – Nayana Nair

I told myself
I just needed some answers
to solve this life.
So that I can untangle my feelings from this world,
from the shadows of people
I am maintaining by my wavering light.
But when nothing got solved
and the problems became too familiar
to be thrown away from my life.
I told myself I was searching
for an explanation.
Just a statement
that helped me make peace with what I got in life.
That if I could have those reasons,
then I believed my pain would dull.
But it didn’t and it won’t.
Now when I look at the world
with a passing amusement at my sadness,
I know my searching is the only thing
keeping me from severing my ties
from this world I so badly want to leave.

“Invasion” – Nayana Nair

What makes us lose our sleep
is the fear of each other
that keeps us awake,
keeps us on guard all our life.
If it was just slaughter that we feared
we could still calm our nerves.
But we fear an invasion followed by abandonment,
that makes it that much more difficult
to overcome the urge to lock out the love
that could solve everything,
as it is also capable
of making us aware
of a deeper pain
a deeper loss
than the one we are already suffering of.

“Belonging” – Nayana Nair

The amount of persuasion it takes
to force oneself,
into believing the delusion
that belonging somewhere
will solve all issues,
will calm the turmoil
of all unexplained emotions.
That we can belong somewhere
just because we want to.

“For my own sake” – Nayana Nair

While I read,
the string of worlds,
the ribbon of words,
gets broken, gets tainted
by my own skewed perspective of world.
I don’t see other’s story
as a story.
I see them as manuals,
as guides,
to solve my own life.
My mind replaces each word
each face, each sorrow
with my own.
Till I no longer know
whose sorrow is it,
that fills me up and weighs me down,
whose memories
blurs my sight.

What is written and what I read
are most often not the same.
And if ever
stories were meant to
understand this world.
I have not done it.
Every word I read,
every page I turned
was for my own sake.