didn’t matter the mileage; i had set my footsteps so far into South Dakota that even the Badlands bled away.

nothing but circumference in the shape of parched surroundings, you live in a disc now, Lucky.

blue skies with one raging eye, reminding me that water was a thing of the past, and the shirt on my back repeated please, so many times, if i would just, please, only let it go.

so i peeled the shirt away, and now it would be several weeks since i had granted that same favor to another.

no vultures overhead. no rattlers underfoot.

not my moment.

you don’t die out here, Lucky. hell, you’re begging for a distant shadow, wild pony. Even a bee sting would be welcome for its reassurance, mild repast.

so i wandered on with the heat not even heat. to the point where ground radiated out towards the sun. wondering who’s going to want this petrified tongue, ever again, in any capacity.

my shoes were abandoned, and in the barefoot shuffle that followed  — in place of a crow, or coyote — a cactus was given. pillow of prickly pears that hadn’t bothered with a slow approach from the horizon. just curious green. a hedgehog with needles that reached. told me, Lucky, you knew this was you, and you knew you wouldn’t be sorry, at least not for yourself, and you knew, sooner or further than this, that it would only be us.

down on my knees — first time bothering to stop since i had first walked away — then flat on my stomach, the only reptile in sight. dirt and dead foliage meeting me half way, and i embraced my new partner in a pillow clutch.

and cactus rewarded me with multiple reminders. one through my earlobe. one sutured along a pair of eyebrows. so many sent through my cheeks that some even violated the remaining taste on my tongue, plunged into my eyes, brighter than the day could possibly imagine in a singular three-way, reminding me again, water was a thing of the past, all that was left untouched, remainders of a city, and a friend, and the time one of us turned our back, and now i was

so far into South Dakota that it wasn’t even worth remembering that nobody had bothered to follow me, gone so far South, into Dakota, all the way, out here.

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