Tender Violets

By Ayushi Chandra

We kissed under the moonlight with my hands against the wall and yours on my paper chest. We stole glances under the churches' stairs as I stole the sky with my eyes that night. There was a certain delight in the sin, we had committed, tender violets, that's what I would call us. In a place where everything is adamant and ruthless I want our hands, to reach out like roots I want our skin, to grow thinner like glass

and our love to belong inside the fragile buds of the violets lavenders. Our hands have known every act of resistance, from rejected calls, slamming the doors in protest to touching each other in places where the verses of the divine had forbidden to. We were two boys soaking under the red skies and blue turpentine walking on green asphalt, smelling of cocaine and love tender violets, blooming like a secret prayer our lips, another act of despair

By Ayushi Chandra