“Can of Worms” – Nayana Nair

.

I have lived well.
I have lived a happy life.
I hold nothing but love for the world.
I wake up everyday hoping for…????
When I close my eyes I see…?????
and then I feel hopelessly …???????

what is it that i was supposed to say?
i know the right words, i know the truth
i just can’t seem to remember the lie
that was supposed to make everything easy.
i only remember the words that will wreck the world.

the words that grow in me
is another can of worms
another name that i should not utter
another stain on my character that is invisible
till i do not acknowledge it

or so i am told

i hate that they are right

“What I Remember (17)” – Nayana Nair

those who spent their lives
wrecking their hands to mould me into something better,
tried fruitlessly
to break me without pain,
to break me and make me into something
that would be accepted by this world.
they showered me with love
so i won’t know, won’t remember
how much it pained me or how much it hurt them
to have gifted me
this painful self-critical view of myself and this world.

while they are growing old, weak and distant
my love for them looks like a failed seed
that never grew nor flowered.
the years that i spent with them
has made me ungrateful.
i have become the fish that never thanked the water
that kept it alive,
thinking that is what water is meant to do.

with time
as a fail to become what i thought i am,
as i realize that doing or even knowing the right thing to do
becomes more impossible as you get to know this world,
i begin to understand the enormous love they must have had for me
to hold my hand and walk with me in a world
that they had never seen
only for my sake,
knowing that their courage and their tears
are destined to be forgotten (or worse- questioned).

and my love?
my love,
it grows in opposite direction of sun,
my love for them grows into the soil my heart
in a world where they won’t see and won’t know.
i will remain cruel and indifferent even in my own eyes.
so i hide my muddled feelings
and walk around those
who have made me what i am
whatever that may be.

“Fictional Friends” – Nayana Nair

i break another glass today,
the girl with blue highlights in her hair
walks over it without bleeding
but tells me
not to try such things at home on my own,
that it took her years of invisibility
to even try such tricks.
but she has no suggestions for what else i should do
instead of breaking my smooth skin
and wrecking my good name.
so she tells me a story about a girl and wolf,
another about a girl and her impossible dream,
about a girl and her sad prince,
a girl and the dark world,
a girl and whatever wants to break her down.
she tells me i don’t have to be that girl.
that i just have to be person who happens to be a girl
and not hate herself for it.

---

it is night already.
i find myself in strange blue rooms.
i hold hands with another new stranger
who promises to sing me to sleep.
he walks like heartache that knows how to smile.
he pretends to be the real deal.
he is too drunk on his own sad story like me
to even see anyone else.
so no we are not in love.
i just want to borrow his songs,
his voice, his awareness of all that is wrong.
i look out of his window, at my own home
at my friends, at my love, at broken frame of my family,
at myself who is trying too hard
to be indifferent to it all.

---

the battery of my phone dies
and i am alone again in this life
that i can’t find my way around.
i am somewhat lost, tired,
and yet somehow happy
to have lived through this despair,
through another dark night.

“What I Remember(8)”- Nayana Nair

when i see my past pain in your tears

now come here,
come inside
and cry how much ever you want.
we don’t want the neighbors to know
how much worse we are doing than them.
trust me dear,
it does no one good
if you go around with these puffed eyes
and cracking voice.

you know, these days
it is not wise to act out frustrations
you never know who is idle enough to observe us
and label us as another example
of a failed generation,
a disappointment,
write an article on
how luxury has spoiled these children,
that we are just a bunch of aimless attention seeking
humans who refuse to grow up,
that we are weak to indulge in something so petty.
they will hand you the list of people who are doing worse
(i have plenty of those stuffed in drawers,
just in case if you are curious to know what it says)

i know nothing is right
but it will be.
we will make it right
but till then
do not wait for kindness,
do not expect understanding.
if you get them be grateful,
but don’t wait for someone to come and pick you up.
we will make through this
not because we are strong enough to face all this
but because this is not the first time
our lives are wrecked by these unacknowledged pains.
like always we will break ourselves
and grow smaller in our attempts to grow up.

“Seasons” – Nayana Nair

My seasons are excited
to be finally released into the world again,
after wrecking havoc over people
whom they saw as trees to be burnt
and rivers to be flood.
Before they leave me
they look into my eyes,
and again they have
misunderstood the fear in my eyes
as my wish.
Again I prepare my heart for the disasters
I must take responsibility for.

“Must be Lived” – Nayana Nair

By the grave of your every love,
I have cried for nights.
For the love they took to their graves
and the life you have lost.
This life that demands me to suffer without hope.
This ocean that I never thought my feet would touch.
The night seem so lonely,
not having someone to
look for me
when I have lost my way
inside the wreck of your life.
Trying to heal the wounds that
you never gave me the right to touch.
The gravestone cries with me.
Like this gravestone,
I mark the life
of the love you lost.

There are certain deaths
that must be lived.