Your Window

“That’s how it is sometimes–
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.”

― Dorianne Laux, What We Carry

“Cheap Literature” – Nayana Nair

Don’t ask which part of me
are easier to love.

I have tried so hard
to become someone who cannot be be loved
without effort or tears.

My faith in love,
my faith in those who love
or it’s absence
is not so difficult to explain.

Clue: Every pop song that leaves you in shambles.
Clue: The books that you call cheap literature.
Clue: The lovers who want to get to the happy ending fast, so they can think about and focus on more important stuff.
Clue: The sappy feelings that you are not interested in.

Those who first talk of my skin and my volume when they talk of love.
(I mean you.)
Those who think that my view of the world, and how the world views me
is just a phase that won’t hopefully be their burden for life.
(I mean you.)
Those who tell me about my selfishness, my unreasonable fears, my unstable suspicious tiring mind over lunch as they run their blade over every bit of exposed skin of mine. Those who are satisfied when I don’t even wince as I bleed, just the way I have been trained.
(I mean you.)
You have made this whole process
more difficult than it should be.

Don’t ask me the easy way.
I might just begin to hate you for that question.

“Unlike me” – Nayana Nair

Sometimes I fear you –
the way you can make me want to change,
the way you make me act unlike myself.
I doubt that maybe I am too easily convinced
and too easily affected by your existence.

I wonder
my effort to become someone you deserve
how is it different from the insincerity
that I have always shown to this world.

When I grow tired of this act
I might end up making you the excuse,
might call you the liquor that I regret giving control to.
I am already finding it easy to resent you
for everything I do wrong.

“You have changed my life”-
is the sweetest sad thing that I never want to say.

“Even if you don’t want me back” – Nayana Nair

From the corner of my eye
I see you smile,
I see it fade.
I see you fade.

From the corner of my eye
falls a tear,
as I run into my mistakes,
run into my cruel words,
as I try to find you,
in this place where you once lead me by my hand.

In every space, in every memory,
in every version of our past
where you promised
you would always stay even if we part.
You look a bit more tired.
I look a bit more impatient.
This is not the reality I lived.
This is not the love I had.

Tell me,
even if it changes nothing,
tell me
that I once had your heart,
that there are moments you want to return to
even when you don’t want me back.

“Part and Parcel” – Nayana Nair

That day when it rained of
bruised and dying birds
of feathers marked with colors only
an arrogant and confident cruelty can cause,
everyone looked about for an umbrella
to protect themselves from this vision
that they didn’t want to witness.
This was not the historic moment
that they wanted to be part of.

I could understand their willingness to believe
that the marks of fingers in the blood and bodies
that filled up the roads
can be called natural causes.
It was probably better
than knowing the names of people whom we may have laughed with
only to know they know how to fly,
how to clip wings and suspend the decaying bodies in air
for eternities,
while we asked them the directions for our life,
while we asked them to tie up our laces as a child,
while we asked them to love us, and build a new life.

I guess even the innocent
got fed up of being looked at like a potential danger
or tired of looking for one.
It was probably more convenient to come to an understanding,
of agreeing on a made-up fact
that this all is part and parcel of being a bird in the sky,
that birds should know better than to fly,
and tempt innocent humans into life of crime.
Birds at their best should just chirp joyfully
and let everything slide.

“Another Song for You” – Nayana Nair

I will make you yet another song
that you will unfailingly forget,
but these are not for you to remember me anyway.
Only dip your tired bleeding feet
into these gentle waters of my heart.
Soak in the words that you deserve to hear.
And then you can again go on that path,
that calls you day and night.
I hope my words, my songs
never become the prison
that your heart dreads so much.
I will make you yet another song
to keep you company on the roads
that you want to walk alone.
To hold you hand
in the your weak human moments
that you don’t want anyone to witness.

“Other ‘Almost’s” – Nayana Nair

Sometimes you find me the words
that I am too tired to look for.
And place it in my hand
with such careful touch,
that I feel I could almost cry.
And that too will be added
to the list of other ‘almost’s
that my life has lived through.
These moments become a house
standing at the shore of my simple wants.
I find myself thinking,
“This could be my home.
I can bear life here.
I can even get used to it.”
I am glad that I have such a place
to think about,
to look back.
Even if my feets don’t agree
to what my heart wants.

“Can there be a me?” – Nayana Nair

Can there be a me
in future,
who wouldn’t second guess the
genuinety of people and relations.
Who wouldn’t live on scarpes of leftover love.
Who would sigh less, and smile better.
Who doesn’t wake up to relive
every sadness till date.
Whose time is not trapped and wasted
on crumpled papers.
I hope there is.
Cause I have lived too long like this
and though I thought
I could do this forever,
but now I am tired.
Today, just want to go to sleep
and wake up somewhere else,
as someone else.

“Name a few” – Nayana Nair

Your hands were tired
of holding me together,
holding me to ground,
keeping me safe from myself
and my fate.
And when you were no longer there
I could go anywhere in the world,
live different lives,
and see the world anew.
Wait for the death
of my sorrow.
Or kill myself with what I am.
All this I have found
at the cost of
losing earth, me, and you,
to name a few.

“Sleep” -Nayana Nair

It has been ages
since I wanted to sleep.
I feel tired and exhausted.
I feel an urge to dip myself
in cold cold water.
So I could get rid of this heaviness
in my soul.
I feel like running and crying
and cursing
and speaking all the stuff
that make no sense.
I do not remember the last time
when I wanted to sleep.
I sleep because I have to.

I am not short of sleep
I am short of hours and minutes
to live my life.
I want to stay awake
and see the clock ticking by.
How pages of book sound different
when turned at the silence of night.
I mean to read poems all night
But I never seem to read enough.
Just a little.
Just enough
to remember how vast this void is
that I’m trying to fill.
How impossible this task.
How less the time.