“Fossil” – Nayana Nair

Drop by drop the wax fills
the bucket of broken butterflies.

I am falling into another sleep,
into another death that is warm,
that embraces me like no lover ever has.

I feel the pain in my wings, and unlike other days
I try to think that this will never pass.
That I will remain like this, with a bit of pain always there
in my shoulder blades, under my ribs, aching for a memory that floats
above my body, above my existence.

Someone holds my hand and I let them.
I was always afraid of living and dying alone.
I guess there are many like me.

Years from now they will find us
and probably write stories
about how we loved each other even in death.
As they look at our almost ruined and almost saved faces
they won’t know how we died heartbroken,
how we held onto each other
but never dared to look at each other
or ask the names we had started to hate.
How our skins melted into each other only because
we had nowhere else to be.
That even as light broke free from our eyes
we didn’t want to look like failure.

“What I Remember (21)” – Nayana Nair

I prod and push the glass slowly, carefully
to the edge of the table,
where your glass stands.
At the edge where you place your suitcase,
where you always tie your laces once again
just to be sure.

That is the place you tell me to love
when you think I might lend something of me
to keep such place alive,
to keep you warm while you keep the door open
like the way the you like them to be.

This is the place you tell me to forget
when the color of my skin doesn’t match the color of your new sky,
when your new birds keep singing songs
of ‘soulmates’ with better specification
when it becomes your new caller tune,
when you think of the best version of your life.
You think of that too often, quite loudly
for me to really forget anything.

This is all I remember of you:

“i never thought you were weak enough to need anyone or anything.”
“i thought you were wise enough, i thought you were better than your gender.“
“call me. meet me. i am feeling down.“
“call me. meet me. listen to me, no one else does. only you have ever cared.“
“call me. meet me. i want us to end.“
“you are too much for me. you are too little in the eyes of anyone in this world.“
“you are so close to having my fickle demanding unfair love, why do you ruin everything by being yourself.
i would have loved you for 2 more years, if you were not messed up.“

When I think of the glasses, of my life, of everything
that I dangerously left at the edges
just to be your equal, just to make sense of you-
I am glad I have claimed back my madness
instead of trying to understand yours.
I am glad I do not have to live my life
compensating for your weakness, calling it love.

“to the one who loved everything true” – Nayana Nair

the truth is
i have loved you
more than what my heart could take.

for years
the only moment
i loved myself, felt proud of myself
were the ones where i put my better judgement in the drain,
were the ones where i clinged onto you even as you made me cry,
were the ones where i suffocated and killed my brain with only your thoughts.

so as you put an end to all that we were
and as i learn to hate you with honesty,
somewhere in me, i know that this end
is what i desperately needed.
this was the peace
that i would have never granted myself.
thank you.

“Tiptoe” – Nayana Nair

the ones we sign our valentine cards to,
the ones we tie ourselves to for life
wait for us to die (or some form of death) to become free.
their heart is full of love – only not for us.

they tiptoe at night to bury their crimes
and demand honesty only when it suits
what they have in their mind.

so even when we ask,
“why did you break me like this
when I loved you so?”

they say, “there are no proofs in stories like these,
where everyone claims to be wronged.
there are no daggers, only words,
which are conveniently easy to forget
or edit if enough years pass.
anyway no one remembers that well,
one can always hear things wrong.”

so we go back to sleep,
get fine with living blind.
tell our self it is fine
as long as we are together,
when “together” is not what we want.

“feelings on the forevers that worked out” – Nayana Nair

you won’t believe this.

yesterday, coincidentally
i met the couple that always looked cute together.
the ones i thought will be together forever.
yesterday, i was sad for the first time
that they are together even after so many years.
that they made something out of their love, when we can’t.

as i smiled at them
and asked them about their wonderful life,
i didn’t feel happy at all.
i wanted to just find you and ask you
“why couldn’t you give me this happiness,
why you had to be as weak as me”.

and when they asked about you
i had to lie that you are doing well.
when they asked if we could all meet up,
i gave them my old number that no longer works.
they were so happy, that it ruined my whole day.

so yesterday was another day
when i learnt that i am not a really nice person.
i could see why you didn’t like me enough.

“Evergreen” – Nayana Nair

The nights are not that painful anymore
whatever grows in me
is evergreen.
It has no care for lack of light in this world,
no care for years filled with question marks.
Unlike me,
it has no fear to be eaten up or extinguished.
Unlike me. It is so unlike me,
that I can rely on it to keep me floating
even my hands refuse to help me live.
I used to believe that it is love,
it is hope that keeps me afloat.
But I no longer have a name for it,
since love and hope have abandoned me
and yet I float.
And yet I float.

“Stack of Books from Strangers” – Nayana Nair

Now everything tastes like my oft-repeated past.
This bitter turn of events
has brought new meaning to my pain that I didn’t ask for.
This morning I even look like someone who needs help.

I guess I may have looked that way for a long time
in everyone’s eyes but mine.
In my eyes, I was doing better,
good enough to be not noticed and singled out.

I smiled enough to keep people from seeing
all the mess I carried in me.
But lately, strangers hand me books
to keep my sad mind busy.

Books that tell me
that it is not too late, that one at a time
I can make something out of the soil that won’t leave my skin,
the soil that I am buried under.

I want to believe in this nonsense more than anyone can imagine.
But my heart is not the same now
as it was years ago.
It no longer believes the words that feel good and hurt later.

“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 do you know?” – Nayana Nair

why is it so
that i can only choose love if i let myself look weak.
it should have been easy to look weak and crumbling,
when that is what i feel all the time.
but it isn’t easy.
maybe because the weakness of my heart has never made me look incompetent,
it just made me look cold and aloof.
being good for nothing is more tragic than being broken or being hated.

how hard i have tried all my life to be good at something.
so that i am not useless, so that people don’t leave me behind on purpose,
so that i can at least look like someone capable and not be embarrassed of myself.

after all the years of running around
and making myself believe
that soon, soon i will become someone i can be proud of;
instead of finding myself, i find you.
i find the in myself the want
to let go of this control, that hurts my hands,
but letting go hurts my pride.

somehow i can’t stop blaming you for asking me to live as me,
for asking me to stop hurting myself.
what do you know about the life i have lived?
what do you know about the things i have sacrificed for living like this?
how can you ask me to break what i have built for years?

i cry, i push you away, i cling to the what i am supposed to be,
asking you why you can’t just be what i supposed you would be.
again i am asked to choose between me and this world.
again i know i will choose myself.
(by choosing to please the world rather than choosing myself?)
but you have some nerve to declare that i won’t.
i hate you for your stupid confidence
and your disregard for all that i will lose.

“seine” – Nayana Nair

Sit here and cry your eyes out.
I know you don’t want to look weak,
that you don’t want my strength
to be the only things that keeps you standing.
But if only you would cry,
if only you would let your weakness show,
I could find in myself the courage
to let you see my tears as well.

This love of mine, it is not much I know.
It cannot do anything.
It cannot stop you from closing your eyes on me.
It cannot do anything but suffer
thinking of the day you heart will forget to beat.
It terrifies me, to think you are already half gone,
that I will get to see the years that you won’t.

I want to tell you that I love you.
I want to hear back the same words, I guess.
But these words, they refuse to come out of me.
I only want to remember the moments
when you said you hated me.
I want to believe that even in this pain
your heart will be lighter
by leaving me behind.

the lights rush past us
the river drowns our image
this air that i can’t breathe
this life you can’t live
your hand that i can’t leave
all make me cry
how did i turn out to be this pitiful?