Lavanya Arora
Lavanya Arora (they/he) is an independent researcher and writer from Uttarakhand, residing in Bengaluru, India. Their literary work has found a home in The Manchester Review, Frontier Poetry, Josephine Quarterly, Thimble Literary, and elsewhere. They dream of extensive dinner dates with fictional characters while (begrudgingly) editing their novel and poetry chapbook.
Instagram: @lavaurora
First kisses are hairy things
Growing up I used to think
peaches can only be Punjabi
blush pink when ripe
and hairy. Soooo hairy
unlike everyone on the TV:
slick like albino aubergines
and never around me.
I didn’t have anyone
to practice
kissing like everyone on TV
kissed hairless tomatoes
to learn the language
of lips. I thought
of digging teeth
into the peach’s white
haired skin, sweet ‘n tart
juice dripping down my chin.
Won’t that hurt?
Won’t I have to wash off
the stickiness of sin
later? My thoughts,
my archnemesis.
Until one day
on a school trip
to Mukteshwar’s heaving
peach orchards, S
tugged me closer.
The fuzz under her nose
Hairy like peaches above
Our heads.
Blush pink, I didn’t mind
bite after bite sharing
the same peach with her.
It felt like stealing
a sharpener
from my bench mate,
who noticed it
in my stationery box
the next day, and instead
of shouting,
“miss! miss!” smiled,
held my hand.
When we returned
to our town, we met
protected by shade
of the gulmohar tree
in a nearby faraway park
as many times
as we kissed in Mukteshwar.
Fifteen years later,
Whenever I bite a peach
Or see a gulmohar tree,
I am reminded of those
Sweet, glimmers of red,
in an ocean of green
susurration.