“don’t ask me. i don’t know what’s my problem just like you.” – Nayana Nair

.

i would wake up
and find myself again in another room
with another stranger (obviously broken)
and i would try to remember the night before,
the season before, the feelings before
i ended up here. i fail to recall the pain that drew me here,
i fail to remove this person from the mess of all the words
that has been said to me before. before is now a continuum.
and “you”, “me”, and “us” and “we”
are just terms that point nowhere, to nothing
but they carry too many people inside, the seams of these words
are always coming apart, there is too much weight to these light words,
they leave our shoulders and heart broken.
how lovely it would be to be singular again.
how simple everything could be.
but everything tends to flow, tends to merge,
tends to find roots every time it taste defeat, it finds ground.
it is still somehow good. though good is maybe a relative term.
but then everything is relative, even us. me and you are different
only when we are placed far apart in time and space.
as i drown diaries and memories in the waters
of the forests that you used to visit, i find myself
walking as you, sharing your skin of fear,
speaking the broken language of your dreams.
as you, i end up drowning a lot more, losing a lot many
things than i had planned to. it doesn’t hurt, honestly,
when that happens. a lot of things should hurt
but they don’t. and i feel that is my tragedy. i used to feel every loss
even of others and i loved it. and now because i feel nothing
i have taken up jobs on the excavation sites of pain of strangers
that are dying from numbness. my presence seems to help,
at least diverts attention. the “too much” about me helps everyone but me.
i have an excess of blood, an excess of heart
however implausible that might seem. but it is so. i have learnt that
after numerous burnings and denial. all that breathes,
all that seems to be made of magic and speaks in voice of thunder,
anything that we don’t understand
we have burned them enough. we are burning too much of ourselves.
but that is not my problem. at least not my only problem.
i have never had a definable problem. but we can talk as if they are,
as if everyone can be broken down into components
of their loss and yearnings and lacks,
their playlist and bookshelves and friend list,
the people we hate and love and can’t stop to obsess about-
the people we are dying to forget and living in remembrance of.
we sound so noble tonight when we talk like this .

as if we are above the shallow plains of life.
i will forget your name though, and you will also forget
or at least would want to forget a lot about me
that is a totally different type of shallow, isn’t it.
we have shared so much and we will hate ourselves for it.

“Inviting the Gray Life” – Nayana Nair

My memories of deprivation,
of yearning
are placed in,
are shot
with the background of
aesthetic picturesque urban structures,
with the clear skies
that only peace or money can paint.

***

How sad
that I feel the need to break down
in grander messed up place and time-
to make this loss real,
to make myself real,
to shed this one tear
that my body refuses to part with.

“Unconsumed” – Nayana Nair

I hear sweet laughter
from far away (from the floor above).
Leftover light from that bright world falls on me.
But it is not mine.
and it seems I am not allowed
to love anything that is not mine.

It seems no one can be mine
until I constantly try to please them,
chain them to me, make them dependent on me,
do their chores, worship them,
read their minds and say only what they want to hear,
be only what they want me to be.
Is this how I make this person mine?
or should I wait for someone else
to put me on a pedestal for once?

I don’t think that would be love though.
But what do I know?
I have tried doing things right every time
and look where it has got me-
passed out on floor,
yearning and envying another’s happiness.

“Another Failure” – Nayana Nair

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If only yearning
was the correct word
for what I feel for you now.

There is a voice in me
that has taken over my throat
and it speaks what I never wanted to say.

It admits all weakness that you never knew I had.
What is the use of confessing
what no one even suspected?

I ask myself that
even as I continue to speak,
even if you are not here to listen.

Maybe your absence
has given me the courage
to do the right thing.

Now that you are gone,
now that you have changed
I have no reason to hide where I hid.

There is no love keeping me away from
the life that I always wanted,
that I could always have.

But the reason
of this freedom
also leaves me paralyzed.

Though there are many failures in my life
that I made you reason for,
now when I can do better without you, I see myself giving up.

How unfair it is to you, if I give up now.
How unfair it is to me, if I cant even taste the only fruits
whose sweetness you have not taken away.

Love was not that hard
and I do not want to add another line
to the poems and essays who blame love for everything.

That would be another lie, another failure for me,
if even when I am losing I seek someone
who is ready to sink with me.