The Inspiration For “Architecture”

Look at me
I’m a marble masterpiece
Sublime, serene and standing tall
Stained with the fumes of yesteryears
The past dredges up against my shores
But at the core
I’m a mausoleum
Whose walls are lined with memoirs
And the weight of each word within
Settles encoffined upon my breath
Entombing the truth indoors
Like a whisper lost in the abyss
Like a skeleton buried forevermore
Yet at the fore
With practiced ease
My smile stretches to meet your own
And I let its gaze
Graze the contours of my face
Wondering all the while
If I’d have preferred it to penetrate
Past the grandeur of my turrets
To the Pietra Dura inlays
The very reflections of your soul within me
Or to the desolate cenotaphs
The carcasses of my past
Laid bare to your scrutiny
I wonder if, then,
I would have smiled
Or welcomed your expression within mine
But as I shallowly gaze upon
The great expectations in yours eyes
I savor the naiveté of my thoughts
Having realized
That as much as my soul
May be shuttered to your own
Twice more
It is to mine

– Akanksha Gupta (poem)