“the broken-hearted” – Nayana Nair

the broken-hearted know no love
for anything or anyone
that is not the one breaking their heart.
they see through you.
even when they say hello
they almost get your name wrong,
you can tell it from the look in their eyes.
they drink and fill every room with songs
that were not so hard to bear
when they were just noises that radio made.
they tell you in their drunken stupor that no one cares.

they say no one cares
even when you call the cab, drag them home,
hurt your hand in the struggle,
scrape more than skin, lose more than patience,
leave them on a bed not made
for weeks probably, you don’t want to guess or know.
so you close the door, climb down the stairs
shut down the part of mind reserved for them,
but remember how they have been liking and sharing
too many dark poems, how those poems
speak in their voice in your mind.
so you climb back, remove every blade and knife
and realize it is just the beginning.
you feel exhausted by the inexhaustible list of things
that can help end a life,
that can serve as a full stop.

so you sleep on the couch
or pretend to,
till your head hurts from pretending.
now that you want something true
you call your love
and tell him that you don’t know
how to handle this,
how to sleep and yet keep an eye
on the one whom you suspect is waiting,
waiting for you to close your eyes for a second
to make an exit that doesn’t exist.
he tells you that they are beyond hope
at the same time
he forwards articles that could give you hope.
he tells you to sleep tight knowing you won’t.

when you wake up at the sound of tears
being microwaved for breakfast,
you see another day that won’t be right.
you see them trying not to break
yet breaking and abandoning everything around them
so that their hurt can be felt by the world.
they look at you and smile
while they pour another glass
toasting “another drink for the world that doesn’t care,
another drink for the loveless me.”

the broken-hearted know no love
for anything or anyone
that is not the one breaking their heart.

“Before I Forget You”- Nayana Nair

I wanted to write something about you,
before I start forgetting-
who you were,
who i was with you,
how we lived,
and how we learned how to not live,
how we felt the extremes of helplessness,
with each other.

But I do not want to be the only voice actor
in this otherwise silent movie.
I could never read your lips.
I never moved mine.
But it should have been enough.
You convinced me that I would be enough for you.

But as I suspected you knew too little of yourself.
As I knew, my love also had limitations.
We hated what we saw in each other.
So you covered your eyes with anger,
I covered mine with fear.
And all we did for years is to sing to each other
about the loneliness that we had gifted each other.

If only we could give up on ourselves earlier,
we may not have suffered so bad,
we might not have hated each other so much.

I wish what we had was something shallow.
But it was not, our wounds are proof of that.

Lets just say that we would live on just fine
and try to believe in that as long as we can.

“Crystal” – Nayana Nair

the crystals
where our future
was supposed to be hidden in,
turned out to be just stones.

we didn’t have enough magic
to make a stone speak.
we turned out be just as human
as we always suspected we were.

and now we have no one to ask
no one to give us false hope
no fiction, no roles,
no ghosts to fear.

we are back to fearing ourselves.

“Another Failure” – Nayana Nair

If only yearning
was the correct word
for what I feel for you now.

There is a voice in me
that has taken over my throat
and it speaks what I never wanted to say.

It admits all weakness that you never knew I had.
What is the use of confessing
what no one even suspected?

I ask myself that
even as I continue to speak,
even if you are not here to listen.

Maybe your absence
has given me the courage
to do the right thing.

Now that you are gone,
now that you have changed
I have no reason to hide where I hid.

There is no love keeping me away from
the life that I always wanted,
that I could always have.

But the reason
of this freedom
also leaves me paralyzed.

Though there are many failures in my life
that I made you reason for,
now when I can do better without you, I see myself giving up.

How unfair it is to you, if I give up now.
How unfair it is to me, if I cant even taste the only fruits
whose sweetness you have not taken away.

Love was not that hard
and I do not want to add another line
to the poems and essays who blame love for everything.

That would be another lie, another failure for me,
if even when I am losing I seek someone
who is ready to sink with me.