honey-girl, prisoner-boy.

Right before daybreak the desert is cool and calm and everything is silence and stillness.
Holy stillness. Wind is slow and lazy, owls wander into sleep. Two hours (two minutes? two years?) after dawn my skin must be golden and blinding, and my skin burns with hundreds (thousands?) of insects, sucking and biting, sucking and biting my honey-coated skin. Every day. Honey. Every day. Good morning, welcome to your sweet, sticky punishment. Welcome to your glowing damnation.

By midday the sun must hit my skin at the most divine angle. There must be the most ludicrous glare. It must be impossible to look at me. Shining beast. Glorious prisoner. O skin o skin o skin fall off already. Peel into sticky shreds. Release my bones. Undo me from the cement block I'm chained to. Forget the desert.

At nightfall, she (he?) brings two dogs (it could be four). At nightfall he brings three dogs when the guard falls asleep (do they guard the half-dead? the honey-coated? am I important enough for guards?). Her dogs start at my toes and lick up my feet and ankles, cleaning off my honey coat. Dog-lovers. Desert saviours. When they are satiated with my sweetness they curl up, honey-tongued, by my feet and ward off rattlesnakes. Dogs.

One night he (she?) kissed me right above my shackles. Right over the metal.
Kindness.
O kindness, kindness. O sweet kindness.