Mud houses and Mehndi
You said you loved me to the moon and back.
You built me a mud house so beautiful, that it rivaled the Taj.
You decorated it with crimson streaks of Sindoor and made it a home.
You planted Mehndi bushes all around it and gave me hope.
I said I loved you to the moon and back.
I kicked at the mud house, untill it lay in ruins and not even your love could save it.
I rubbed away at the crimson streaks of Sindoor, untill all that remained were brown stains and not even your faith in me could rescue it.
I tore at the Mehndi bushes, untill the life went out of them, and they drooped listless and brokenhearted and not even your care could nourish them.
I often passed those ruins of the mud house. And saw with apathy, the destruction I had wrought.
A tear would fall occasionally and startle me with how wet it felt on my cheek.
I, quite shamelessly would recollect the mud house in all its glory, and walk on.
A twinge of guilt would prick me and make me wonder if I still had a heart.
I marched alongwith time, sometimes forgetting all about the mud house. At other times I deliberately chose the path leading me to it.
The sadist in me wanted to see how devilish and vile I had been.
On one such pilgrimage, it startled me to see a wall of the mud house had been rebuilt in the rubble using bricks of patience.
Oh and there was a brown stain disappearing into the crimson of hope.
A new green Mehndi leaf was poking it's way through the morass of non-existence.
Are you near My Love?
Did you never forget?
Is it your persistence that is sucking me out of this cesspool of nothingness?
Are those your muscles which are straining against my selfishness?
Has it always been you?
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