My Taj Mahal

Why do I write of love?

It is neither pressing
nor impressing
nor depressing

Why do I write of love?

It knows no grammar
It holds no glamour

Then why do I write of
the skies in his eyes on restless days
the storms in my gasps on turbulent nights

Why?

---------------------

I keep moving on
from one story to another
leaving tombs on dead ones
in faceless times
in nameless places
clueless
about the next tombstone.

-----------------------

He had waited
I had too.
We thought-
Love is not a slave of confessions
Ah! But then,
silence is an insidious assassin

& we did not know that

Lights adorning the walls
The sound of shahnai
Girls giggling over floral designs of mehndi

In the courtyard next to mine,
they are celebrating.

Another love story died today.

Time for yet another Taj Mahal
a tomb
not for a lost lover
but for a love story
dead & dusted.

So tonight
I write of love
I write my last Taj Mahal
until tomorrow.