I walk in the desert heat. Sand and scorpions, with mystery hidden in the red rocks. The temperature skyrockets into triple digits and the sun beams down ultraviolet rays of cannibalism. In a simple act that turns into a fight for survival, my sunscreen loses power.
Sweating bullets in the blazing heat, the river of ice stays in my dreams. Coyote howls are the background music in the night, when I watch the sun set into unknowability, the clear blue sky fading into satanic shades of red and undertones of bubblegum pink.
Cue the sunrise, when I hit the dry ground, light a cigarette, and ignite a forest fire. The apprehension I feel is a foreshadowing. Even the sand goes up in flames. The hours in the inferno pass by.
Three in the morning, my night vision is not applicable, as light from the evolving bonfire remains alive in the distance, casting through the street.
The Arizona sun, a green light to manifest cancerous cells, but I justify my life of radioactivity, even as my skin cracks and bleeds in the humidity drought. Wishing for moisture, begging for a cool breeze, but I still love the brutality of the sun in mid July.
Fetch the tanning oil while I wear sunglasses in a brain freeze. Blended ice keeps me afloat.
I need the enigmatic nature of the desert, in the amalgam of rocks and venomous creatures. The grudge of the exoskeleton. The third degree burn. The incinerator.
Combust in the acid rain, taking gasoline shots. A Grand Canyon complex or a dependency on the saguaro cactus, the cruel intentions. Debauch in the heat and breach the security of the petrified forest.
Mile by mile, my thought process spans the dry land. I weigh the pros and cons, and I choose the psychosis.
Hot white desert anonymity; I wish to understand why it disturbs me to my core. The answer could destroy my happiness and obliterate the optical illusion.
I still try to hold all of the cards in the deck, sitting on the rocks, but my hands twitch and the cards fall off a cliff. I will never know what lies in the uncharted territory.
UFO sightings, inconclusive paranormal experiences, rattlesnakes appearing out of thin air. Corrosive panic at midnight. A knock on the window, a bump in the night, an idiosyncratic witness to the riddle that is my lifestyle.
Try to decode the cryptogram. Burn in suspense. What lies beneath, above and below. My boiling dilemma, which will never be resolved.
The Arizona desert that crawled under my skin like a tic. I value what will always haunt me and intrigue me. The flickering flame of my curiosity.
The scorpion stings, the rattlesnake hisses, the black widow bites, the cactus pricks. The sudden split into the fifth dimension at the speed of light, where I barely saw a glimpse of the mystery, feeding on my stupidity.
But the climax is the sun that sets over a tan, off-red landscape, when I know that the beginning of the night has a hold on me. I lose control and surrender to the blood moon, as a black widow in the middle of the desert, crawling behind the walls, perpetuating the unease and whispering suspicion.
