“the constant part of love” – Nayana Nair

i remember your hands and their warmth
like i remember
the versions of me
that were easier to live with (or so i think).
the colors, their unnatural brightness,
the scent of acetone always lingering
on the tips of your fingertips,
always hiding a sad rainbow (just my type).
always a star that you forgot to rub and break,
shined on your skin.
under my lips, they shined brighter than my world.
i swam to them as they stood in a world of darkness
in the shapes of you and me.
it is so odd
that in my constantly breaking and building and growing
brain and its images and meaning-
everything about you meant love.
i loved your flower hairpins and fake bullets
and the magazines of the the people you would rather be
and the window you glanced out of when didn’t want to look at me
and your back against mine.
it is odd
that i could love you so
even when i didn’t know why?

“some sort of attachment, if not love” – Nayana Nair

A new announcer has replaced the old one.
The one with the shrill voice
is too tired or too sad to continue, I guess.
This new one, she sounds more like my type.
She seems like the one who will define my types.
I am so thankful she is not the one who tells me to go back to sleep
when I am crying at 3 without knowing why.
So thankful that this deserted night, this cold concrete,
her cold instructions, her reminder to wait patiently
reminds me that this is also a day I will forget
if I do not do anything.
I am so thankful that I cannot confess my laughable weakness to her.
If I wait as she tells me to
my life will come swooping in and take me somewhere else-
a new place where I will hate everyone again
for not speaking the way I like, for loving me wrong,
for not accompanying me on the empty train stations
when I try to run away from all that I have built,
from all that I have tried to call my new beginning.

“Shopping in the HATE section” – Nayana Nair

should i thank you
for becoming the faceless stranger
that i dread the most?

you are the new voice inside my head.
less of a voice, more of a threat.

how should i make you happy?
how can i shut you up?-
is all i think about.
i want to grow up
and grow out of this mind
that can’t take even this shallow critique.
but i can’t.
how can I confront you
when you may actually be correct about me?

what should i do?
remain a nothing till your attention shifts?
learn to cry without being bashed for my weakness?

but at least I am glad I am not your type,
that I am not the excuse
you would use to pull someone else down.

so goodbye “the embodiment of my self-doubt”
thank you giving me another grief to write about,
for speaking your mind and taking away my voice.

“Frail Sheep” – Nayana Nair

I kept typing
and just when I thought
this is it,
this is what I want to say,
140 characters were over,
the day had ended,
you had closed your eyes,
and turned your face to other side.

I told myself-
‘tomorrow,
tomorrow i will tell you everything,
tomorrow we will be happy.
you may not love me again
after i say all i need to say,
but we will be happy,
even if it’s on our own’.

I repeated this to myself
as if i knew anything about your happiness.
I repeated this
as if I was counting sheep-
sheep that have grown frail
living on nothing but my words.

As another dark dream came to find me,
I prayed that
tomorrow
may I forget all the words
that can set things right.
I’m afraid till the end
I won’t change.
I keep hoping
that we keep walking together
in this rain of sadness and hurt.

“Through the End” – Nayana Nair

However convenient it is to pretend,
but we are not the types that go into hibernation
and expect life to continue where we left it.
Though there is a part of us
that wants to hide ourselves into any warm embrace
and rely on darkness for safekeeping our innocence.
There is also a part of us
that wants to stay and see through the end,
however terrible and heart-breaking that maybe.
We fear not knowing
as much as
living alongside a truth not and knowing its name.