“Even when things are right” – Nayana Nair

“The sky is your canvas”,
the book to all ailments said,
“there is a joy in filling it up with life.”
But as I finished my 157th sketch,
as I finished my 300th one,
as I finished the one with no count attached
(the one I called “the limits that were stronger than me”),
as I write over all that I had drawn,
as the clouds dragged themselves painfully
crawling to some better place,
like everything else in my life
the sky remained unchanged.

And when I lost my hands to fate, to slow corrosion,
to the burden of creation,
to the lady in white who couldn’t even lie that “it won’t hurt”,
to the painful work of making up things that I want,
things that would want me back, or at least won’t walk out,
to the hunch that said something is seriously wrong
with the kind of life I have.

I wished for the man in the sky
to wake up and get to work,
to make me some rain,
to drop an ocean of crystal on this world,
to paint a heaven on this cheap sky of this miserable man.

Because trying on some days, on most days now,
feels like living against the wishes of the world.
I can’t help but break a bit, cry a bit
even when things are right,
because they right only because of my efforts.
Can you give me something that I don’t have to work hard for,
something that was made for me,
something that I can keep.
A thing, a person, a sign
that I can hold in my hand
that tells me that you want me to be happy,
that you want me to smile,
that I am not abandoned after all.

“maybe once” – Nayana Nair

his name doesn’t feel like a dying world now.
once,
maybe once
blue was his favorite word,
i was his favorite person thing medicine game hope
but now that he is burning all his notebooks
i believe life is getting better for him.
he paints skies for me, paints me flowers
that have never known cold.
once,
maybe once
i could let myself rest in him
but now that he has found himself
i can’t bear to be lost in front of him.

“In the Image of” – Nayana Nair

I am not talking about
enhancing my likability here.
But just to be taken seriously
I need to like certain things,
I need to act certain way.
I need to fill forms
whenever I meet someone new,
whenever I meet them again.

Am I capable? Am I an intellectual (of the right kind)?
Am I still childish?
Am I still unable to follow the conversation
that is not spoken in the language I follow?
Am I still reluctant to give up on all the things
that are no longer relevant.
Am I now ready to listen and only listen
to take in
the version of a world that is more widely accepted.
Am I finally aligned with the opinions, interests
and common hatred that bonds us?
Have I grown weak and weary
of the silence that I am put through?
Have I realized what I could do, whom all I can befriend
if I break myself in image of my oppressor?

“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.

“Something Evil” – Nayana Nair

If ever there was something evil
it must be love that seeps into our heart
making us belief that we want things
that we never actually wanted,
without which we were living just fine.
It must be losing people that were never ours
and wanting what brings us pain.
Fixing one thing after another
to believe that peace is one fix away.

“Friends?!” – Nayana Nair

Let me give you company on your afternoons
and let me think of things I would rather listen to, while you talk.
Let me open my mouth to keep you close with a secret
and I will watch as you cut my string of words
and remind me of who you are.
Let me forge a new myself that you can approve of,
one less thing for you to complain about.
It’s no trouble for me.
I have lived like this throughout my life.
I do not see you.
You do not see me.
And we need not been seen, to be what we are.

“Spring” – Nayana Nair

I make some space on my cluttered desk
for my head to rest its worries.
And I find a string of light
as a keepsake
to take with me when I’m buried.
What else am I going to miss?
There are so many things I miss in life already.
But I can’t make my heart strong enough
to reach out to a life
that I have lived without.
I can’t make myself
go out of this room
open the door to see
the spring that I always dreamt of,
the spring that waits for me outside.

“Held Down” – Nayana Nair

Though I want to write of you
I find myself incapable of that.
Cause I have not yet learned the words
for the kind of person you are.
And all I have written about you,
the only thing that
can live in those lines,
is my heart that doesn’t yet know
how to love you.
The ‘you’ who cannot be held down
by any love.

“Loss” – Nayana Nair

Surely we have
at least a page in every book we write,
where we brood over
all the things we lost.
And I have often found that page to be
most meaningful.
As if we become better humans
by this loss.
Often on those pages,
I have realized,
not all losses
are to be cried upon.

“Soon” – Nayana Nair

There is a thought

that holds my hands

sometimes to save me from drowning,

sometimes to drag me down.

The thought that

all you say

and all I say

will be part of all the noise

that this world has already lost.

This world that had witnessed us together

will soon forget us.

And we won’t feel a thing a that time,

however we may dread that day right now.