“Knowing is also a sort of poison” – Nayana Nair

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There are too many thought on my mind today
there is too little love in my heart
but my eyes are focused only on you dear
my ears hear only your voice.
But it doesn’t matter,
I know that too.

Knowing is also a sort of poison.
It only makes me angry at
your smile and your assurances.
It doesn’t change the fact
that today you live in hurt
and tomorrow you may not be with me to get better.
It doesn’t change the fact
that you won’t let me come close,
that you say I have no right
to know that part of you.

All that I am allowed to do now
is to smile as if I do not see,
is to talk of a tomorrow that will never be,
think of names we would never get to use,
plan a journey we will never begin.
This is all we ever did, when we had so much time.
This is all we ever did. This is what we will never do.
That’s all there is left to it.

You will say that you are fine.
I will say “I know”, when I don’t.
And I will hate the sight of your pain
and I will hate myself for it, as will you.
Maybe I will burn this place down
if you don’t let me in.
Maybe there is no place left to burn,
Maybe that’s what you’re hiding.
Maybe that’s what you mean.

“But more than love” – Nayana Nair

But more than love
I needed to feel that I am human,
that my heart and its pieces
and its tentacles struggling to get a grip on me
are a story everyone’s bored of.

I needed to know that I am fine.
As fine,
as normal
as the person who doesn’t meet my eyes.
That I could look up from the sinking ground.

I needed someone to place me in the sun,
to water me, try hard to keep alive,
to make this
small me
the center of world
for few seconds.
Someone who could grow and bloom beside me,
because of me.

But more than love
I wanted you to be the one
who does that for me.

“Now I cannot hate myself” – Nayana Nair

But now I am not
me anymore.
Now I cannot hate myself
like I used to before.
Liking myself was never option,
for me anyway.
If only I could be one person
with a constant heart,
maybe then I could have
understood myself with enough time,
could have found the heart to see myself
as a mere human that I am.
But this,
this possession of my body
and my heart
by a new unknown
everyday
is tiring.
Today
the loneliness that I couldn’t show,
the songs I was supposed to forget,
the kiss that never left my lips
all become my new self.
Tomorrow it will be something else.
But it is a tiring relief
to lose my hate to confusion.

“Fragmented Thoughts (7)” – Nikitha Nair

An eternity waits for you.
An eternity waits for me.
It won’t be long before we meet
each other. River beds go dry.
River beds go dry,
sparrows swallow seeds,
the pots are broken,
and will never be filled.
But the eternity waits for us.
A second, an hour walks slow,
taunting me,
but holding,
holding a promise of tomorrow,
a promise of you.

–Nikitha Nair

“Random Radio” – Nayana Nair

Don’t tell me of your love.
Tell me you’ll leave tomorrow
and stay a day more.
Move an inch closer
when I take your name.
Let me not believe you sometimes
and smile when I do.
I don’t want love,
but I will try to want it,
if you try to want me slowly and cautiously.
When you put on that random radio station
let me stare at you as you dance,
breathe as if I am not here,
let me see who you are without this want for me.
Smile when you catch my eye
and kiss me if I smile back.

“Last to know” – Nayana Nair

I regret to tell you this
that the blue sky that you died for
is not longer blue.
It is painting its face with remains
of our greed, with the colors of our wars.
But it is still sort of fair.
It is trying hard not to choose sides,
not to become the flags that unites
only those whose favorite words are
‘future’, ‘safety’,’money’, ‘greatness’,
while they clutch in their hands the fate of people
they don’t identify with-
‘burden’ they call them.
‘Fear’ is another favorite word of theirs.
They don’t speak much of it, but it is most useful
or at least that’s what I have heard
from the ones we are no longer allowed to call out or even mock.
I have lost every bit of my passive aggressiveness.
Life has become more bearable
now that my skin is not broken for making too much noise,
now that we have learnt to hold each other’s tongue
so that we may not lose more friends than we already have.
I regret to tell you
that your dreams will remains dreams
and you might be one of the last to know
how dreams felt in your eyes,
how tomorrow used to change by effort.

“All that I am” – Nayana Nair

The sun in your eyes sets so slowly. I need to remind myself that this is not the end. This is not the end. This is not the end. This is but a chasm left open for the love to see. For the love to see and for this love to grow into the darkness we hide from each other, from this world, from our own eyes. She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me today, tomorrow she may not, she will love me as long as she can. These are the words I got to say and suffer over, again and again. These are the words that made me walk a little bit more. Is there anything more beautiful than this? That you were the light, the wind, the silence, the flickering hope in my heart. How can I lose you, when you are all that I am.

“Oscillate” – Nayana Nair

i don’t want to move on from you,
even though you are not what i want anymore.
i can’t
because i fear
that i might start to love you again tomorrow.
tomorrow – when it is already too late to take back words.

“Red Valley” – Nayana Nair

every red flower
that couldn’t bloom,
that was denied a spring,
now grows inside us.

we breathe to keep them alive
so their sky remains blue
and they might know
what tomorrow means.

there is a weight on our tiny shoulders
to carry voices that were once locked in vacuum,
to do everything right,
to build greenhouses by our words and intention.

but we don’t need broad strong shoulders
to carry this weight, to keep this valley alive.
we only need to unlearn
every cruelty we have ever been taught.

“What I Remember (13)” – Nayana Nair

i did all that i must do
and now no one asks me what’s next.
thankfully,
no one burdens me with with their dreams anymore.
i am no longer a possible candidate for the worst,
for taking over the misfortune of my mother’s life.
i no longer have to worry about hurting my parents by
being like them or living like them.
thankfully,
what bothers me, what eats me up
is nothing that would keep anyone else awake
and that is important.

in spite of this emptiness i write about
and this loneliness that seems bigger than this world,
all this do not stop me
from laughing at jokes, craving for food that i shouldn’t eat,
dreaming of another broken love with my only lover,
from having a good time – that i will conveniently forget.
nothing i cry about, no ailing that lives in me
is too large to stop me from living.

i guess i carry an instability in my genes.
if my eyes are in the color of sadness,
i guess i got it from my parents.
and they are lovely people who somehow raised me right
in spite of having a tendency to mess up things
and their sadness with life.

tomorrow i will probably hate them frequently again
but they will nag at me when i reach home drenched in rain,
will tell me sit straight and force me to eat what will keep me alive,
will ask me to keep my phone down,
and sleep a little bit more.

they will not ask what’s wrong and that will disappoint me,
but they will let me do what i want to do (sometimes)
and they will try their best not to wrong me.
they will wish for my happiness,
even if they have no idea what makes me happy
and that is important.

because though i lived my extended teenage
believing that i had no one,
but it was not true.
i saw no one
and it is my fault.
even when i thought i was not loved
they have loved me silently.
though it was a tiring love,
it knew no end.