Anna Vaught

When we meet love that sees us as what we are, we blossom. And that little flower, a blazon; some heat from a heart we thought we thought desiccant, and a loin we knew to be silent.

There’s a lot of cruelty in our world, isn’t there? Where goggle-eyed dictators and influentials rule what is said. Where men are led by appetites of the wrong kind and lay their table not with bread and herbs but with lust and coldness. It’s like a chess game of moving pieces to gain advantage, and what way is that to live? And you see, if you look closely, and if you get down there and smell the mud, titillate the sand on your tongue and suck at a blade of grass, well now you will taste the acidity that is born of cruelty.

This could be done in a dark kitchen. I like to do it in a dark kitchen because, when I started growing ideas – which he, ironically, helped me seed, plant and nourish – I started to realise that shame can be delicious.