Sitting Inside a Classroom

Outside the glass windows,
The world waited with bated breath
For the lectures to end
And education to begin...
The tall pines swayed in affirmation.
Urdu alphabets adorned the black board
Like trinkets and earrings
Holding onto a bride's body.
Outside, the planned gardens and "chowks"
Brushed away the bullet holes
That had ravaged the air so long ago.
Words, drunk on longing and pain,
Moved slowly in the rose gardens.
Pricked by the thorns of the years gone by,
They bled nostalgic laughter,
And a mob of shared pain
Lost themselves in the Bazaars of the heart.
Like smoke from an unpuffed cigar,
The city slowly slipped through my fingers.