“why am i hurt by your hopes?” – Nayana Nair

i thought…
i wanted…
i am always looking for…
i am nothing without…

must i fill these sentences?
is it compulsory
to tell you where it hurts and why?

the pencil bends and breaks
in my hand, but my voice won’t crack.
i think a bit of my cruelty shows
through everything that i do.

“have you ever wanted to be a person like me?”
when i ask you this, you avoid my eyes.
the often-spoken-and-never-meant words
surface on your lips,
“i love you for who you are, i want nothing more”
sadly followed by
“it is not too late to change”

“I Hope Not” – Nayana Nair

I stood at the bottom of the stairs,
stones climbing on each other
as my eyes touch their edges
rain dripping from the green slowly taking them down.
Soon I started to wonder as I always do,
when I see a place I have never been to.
In the days I had not known you
could you be here, where I was not.
Can the air here
remember your face as you moved through it.
I hope not.
I hope you never wander to places
I moved through, when you were not there.
I hope you never find me.
I hope no one remembers what I was.
For I am as I was.
How much would it hurt for you to know
that not even you can reduce my pain,
even with all your love.
I hope you were happier before me,
I hope you will be happier after I leave.
Just a few more days
till I think of the way to end my suffering.

“Switched On” – Nayana Nair

As the light and the life of the streets
are switched on,
I wait for your knock on my door,
my heart going on imaginative trips
to the hell of not knowing.
Not knowing
with whom you might fall in love,
where you might find another broken human to pet,
in what form will that person appear
who would hold your rain for a moment
while you fix your smile.
This interesting world scares me,
where everyone and everything is better than me.

“Dreams of Past” – Nayana Nair

He sat down and decided to write a list
of all the things he had lost.
He decided to look for them.
He decided to find them
the same way the dreams of past had found him.
He put his pen down
and stared at the wall ahead,
stared till his eyes would hurt
as much as his heart does.
He cried whole night
for he couldn’t remember
even one thing that he had lost
and couldn’t understand
why the shelves in his heart
were empty.
He didn’t know how to search for them.
He didn’t know where to start.

“Spilling the Ink” – Nayana Nair

You ask why I don’t stay and fight.
You ask if I realise that
I can win as much as others.
I tell you that everyone has a dream.
And what I get by staying and fighting,
are not my dream.
That I cannot live in this world
of regulated self-expression.
Always fearing when I would spill out of the lines.
So even if my broken is not as shabby and scattered.
Even if my madness is not the sort
that can get admiration.
Even if my hands struggle with holding myself where I am.
Just know that I leave,
not because of aversion to this world,
nor to find a better place.
I leave cause I cannot breathe in water
even if I want to.

“Wandered too far” – Nayana Nair

Have we wandered too far away
from where
once lived our dreams?
It’s a long walk
and dark thoughts chase me
on this sunny day.
Smile at me once more.
So that I know there is not only one place,
not only one way to dream.