At the beginning we were separate entities, two bodies walking home as the sun rose. Dancing till five on cheap cider and rancid wine.

We took breakfast in a ***** cafe, the kind where the coffee is bitter and there's a filthy spoon in the sugar bowl. Where there's an ashtray on every table despite a smoking ban.

You took my hand in yours as we left, and I made myself small enough to fit inside that stern grip, moulded myself like a glove around your long fingers.

When I look back, I remember the smell of tulips, a sweetness hung in the air. I rooted myself into you. I dug down until the core of the Earth shuddered beneath me.

Once planted, you watered me, weeded me. Cut out the diseased leaves that stunted me. I grew at your command. Tall, like a prize winning sunflower. The yellow petals of Spring, awakening.

You'd smoke in the morning and talk softly. A throwaway comment of there being no God. I didn't believe you. For I had held God in my mouth as we kissed, relished the taste of the forbidden fruit on your tongue.

Yes. I believed. In a God that you didn't but I felt when you touched me, softly, the folds of our flesh meeting, our two bodies, our seperate entities becoming

one