White Marble, White Lie

Tonight, I rest beneath your masterpiece, a facade of pristine ghostly white,

The tomb you built me, did you know, glimmers only in the cold moonlight?

I hear they call it love these days, everlasting, undying, pure, the envy of all who see—

But love, my Gurkhani, does not reflect on rock— and naive must be those who do not see how you honored me.

But then again they say, you wept as if the world should halt, pay respect to your despair, your anguish a poet's fire,

Yet you soothed your ache so soon with another's swift embrace, my sire?

My sister’s hands, which once held mine, now bear your wedding band,

Tell me, did love lose all its worth as soon as I could no longer stand?

They whisper loudly of your grief, how you made skies turn gray,

Tell me why they do not speak of how in the palace, music played not long after my decay.

Was I just a muse then, a memory, a story for you to retell?

Or just a page you turned too fast—did I not fade a bit too well?

Did your heart not break the way you swore to me it did? Or did it just bruise light—

Enough to ache, but not enough to keep you here, with me, at night?

Or even, tell me did I not bleed enough for you, bear you heirs to fill your court?

Fourteen cries and labored breaths—was that not love’s report?

Fourteen times I faced the edge between this world and none—

And the last time, you wept for me… only to be found here until the mourning sun.

You found another womb to warm your widowed bed,

Yet call this dome my monument? A shrine? To me—the dead?

I do not scorn the living, Shah—I know you feared the cold.

But must you lie to the world and say this tomb is gold?

That this—this marble, still and mute—is all I ever meant?

While she, with pulse and breath, now walks through the halls I have bent?

And to my sister—my own blood and bone—how could you wear my face?

You slipped into the life I left and filled my empty space.

Did you not flinch to hear my name still echo through his halls?

Or did the silk and silver hush the guilt beneath your walls?

You wore my favor, my scent— shared his bed, his name…

But dear, take my warning now: his marble hides its underlying shame.

I should curse you, and some days I do, for walking where I bled—

But still, late some nights I see your eyes and grieve for what's ahead.

He loves in marble, not in flesh; his grief merely carved, not felt.

One day you'll lie in shadows too—and know the hand you have so long held.

That day, when your beauty fades from view, another will take your place

Then you will say he loves the echo, not the voice; the shadow, not the face.

Oh, Shah, they say this place will never fade, this shining silhouette,

But still, I lie forgotten here—your finest, deepest regret.

So let them come and gaze in awe, let strangers call it grace—

But I know what your silence cost, what took my rightful place.