It was a religious experience really. We bent at an alter of sorts, and sacrificed our reservations, we poured hormones in the goblet and drank deeply, our names are now scattered about my bed like ashes; torn and kinked and wet and tired. So tired. Like air in May.

We clasped our hands together tightly, and prayed that the other might not turn or laugh or vomit, then we lay down between those soil sheets, and a cloudy blanket, we listened to warmth seep from the others lips. We were so young.

And as it happened I couldn't help but think of my father. He didn't know that I had fairy'd off while he was sleeping, for this, a sermon that he had received countless times. And my mother. She did not know how I was naked; open, and suspended, naked. My brothers and sister, who may very well have been attending the sermon at that very moment.

I tasted the word of god, thin, and salty, and new, like sweat. I watched a donkey walk over palm branches and box springs, and squeaks cried out in hymns.