To Be a Me

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

Do you think I’m strange?

Do you think I’m odd?

Is there a rule, how to be, 

how to think, 

how to feel? 

Feel me, am I too soft?

I’ve followed the rules, how to be,

how to be to be ok.

But sometimes I forget,

sometimes I don’t understand the unspoken rules. 

There’s always a nagging feeling in

the back of my head, 

in my body,

that I did something wrong.

How to be, how to be me?

There can’t be a rule, how to be me.

I am, and I am no rule.

I am me, I am.

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

So Much Bigger

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

Of course I couldn’t find myself.

I’m so much bigger than I ever could have imagined. 

I was looking for something small.

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

The Most Beautiful Song

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

Sing to me,

you sing the most beautiful song I have ever heard, 

sing to me, sing once again my beautiful soul. 

-Nanne Nyander  "The Way Back Home"

Profound Loneliness

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

What happens if I just stop treading water, 

if I don’t struggle to let go,

if I just let it be?

What happens to the me

if I stop feeding it with more thoughts,

if I just let it be?

Be me, no more.

The profound loneliness of not being me. 

The me does not exist.

How could I be something that does not exist? 

But what is left,

when everything is taken away?

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

I’m Stuck

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

I’m stuck in the in-between,

no going forward, no going back.

I’m stuck in my own creation,

a creation I never chose to be in.

I’m stuck.

I can’t just let everything be,

and just be.

Be what?

Everything has fallen apart,

and I am in the middle of everything. 

There is no way back and no way forward. 

Show me the way and I will follow,

but I’m left on my own.

Why have you abandoned me?

I can’t find my way out of this,

I’m so tired,

but I have to move forward.

Maybe to move forward is to not move at all.

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

Without a Thought or Sensation

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

I am,

is a sound in the mind

and a sensation in the body,

but I am neither.

I am before that.

I am aware of the sound 

and the feeling of I am. 

I am, without a thought or sensation.

I am.

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

Lost in the Struggle

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

Lost in the struggle with the mind. 

Insignificant noise within the immense silence, 

the eternal light of the one.

-Nanne Nyander "Out of the Labyrinth"

Free to be Nothing

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

What’s the feeling of being free?

Space is moving inside me.

I follow the movement,

thoughts are popping up here and there,

but they don’t mean anything to me anymore.

I can watch the thoughts appearing out of nothing, 

and disappearing into nothing.

If I don’t follow them, they quietly move past me, 

I don’t need to hide anymore.

I’m out in the open, I’m totally vulnerable,

but I’m free, free to be vulnerable,

free to be nothing.

Free to be.

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

Bewildered by the Silence

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

I breathe in the stars and the moon,

the sky appears as my body.

The empty space between everything

is not empty at all.

It contains a mystery

bigger than the human mind can ever fathom. 

Listen to the silence between the words that are spoken, 

in between every note that is played,

and you can understand without understanding,

see without seeing,

hear without hearing,

be without being.

Bewildered by the silence

in the breath of the universe.

-Nanne Nyander "One Without a Second"

The Ground of Oblivion

 © Nanne Nyander - Poems and Paintings

Photo by Nanne Nyander

Snow, pure snow, cover me,

make me as pure as you.

Freeze all the clinging to thought, 

make it fragile and break it.

Break all attachment to my false identity,

like breaking fine crystal. 

Make it shatter into a million pieces, 

and melt into the ground of oblivion.

-Nanne Nyander "Out of the Labyrinth"