“Resemblance” – Nayana Nair

Have you heard about the lady that sits two seats away.
They have an awful lot to say about her.
I have never heard her speak,
but what I hear about her
is so much more interesting
than what she could possibly tell me.
No, I do not participate is spreading lies
or statements that that are as likely to be true
as they can be false.

Some days I end up feeling more than I should.
I think of all the days I was her.
Now I am not, nor will I ever be again.
But once I was
and that makes me feel sad and then angry at her
for showing me something that I do not want to see.
If her story and her life
could have existed somewhere out of my sight,
I could have afforded some sympathy.
If I didn’t expect her to do all that I should have
and all that I couldn’t,
maybe I could have taken into consideration
that weakness that all of want get rid of.

Rest of the days
I keep my eyes open and try to see her
apart from what I know of her,
apart from what I see of me in her.
And what little resemblance to my sorrow she had
vanishes as quickly as it appeared,
telling me to look for another mirror,
preferably not a person,
to see and regret all that I can’t blame myself for.

“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.

“Better Ways” – Nayana Nair

So much of
what I have and what I like
becomes
a statement of who I am,
that now before liking anything new
I am looking only at my own collage
and where it fit in there.
There is too little space
and too many eyes.
I am too small to take in all this
and give home to all that I love.
There are better ways to exist
and better ways to love.
But not many ways to embrace life
while keeping myself and my image intact.