Red Scars Shimmer on Your China Skin

“Welcome to Arizona”
The headlights of my car illuminate the sign. I slow down, almost without realizing it.
Took me less than two days to get here. I pull the car. I lean my head on the dashboard. I am exhausted. I will have slept 4 hours at maximum. I only stopped to pee.
A strange air, an unknown itch to heart. And now that I arrived in this fucking Arizona I’m tired. So tired that I barely have time to stop the machine, to wish you goodnight.

***

It's so hot. And there's too much light. I try to open my eyes but a cramp in my neck immobilizes me. "Shit" I sigh. "Fuck" I greet the new day this way. All my bones ache. My mouth is slurred. Still with my eyes closed for too much light and headache, I gropingly search for the door handle. I find it and I manage to open the door. I throw out my head. The hot air rising from the asphalt causes me nausea. I open my eyes. Reddish land, unknown land, a land too hot. I vomit bile, from the open door, while I slip out and collapse on my knees. I feel my legs shaking in synchrony with the fingers and wrists that give in under my weight. I find myself kissing this land, tasting the rawness, the metal, the heat. It sticks anywhere on my lips, on my not-made beard, up on my nose. I dug my fingers in it, I break my nails, as if I could pierce all my pain in here, inside these rocks smashed and trampled. As if crying in this wilderness could empty me from the fear, which has entered under my skin, and I feel crawling in these blue veins. The ears hiss, to cover the shame I have become. And the disgust comes over me for every time I dreamed you, I cursed you and screamed against you. For every time I pleasure myself thinking you were dead and the other night when I almost strangled that bitch while she was sucking me. You've always hated it, and that mouth, unholy and unknown, should be your punishment for all the times you have refused me, with a smile full of stupid excuses and your lips chapped and warm and those hands of yours always distracting me… I shout until my throat is scratched, until there’s no more voice, as long as there is only love.

***

The sun is high in the sky when I get back in the car. I turn it on without hesitation. After few kilometers away there is a gas station. I enter. The few customers and the woman at the bar stare at me for awhile and then plunged back into their fucking thought. Passes a lot of strange people, I think. It has to go very much, I think as I look at me in the mirror. My face’s smeared with dust, streaks of tears and saliva, hair disheveled. I have with me a bag of clean clothes. I kick off my shoes, then I take off my hoodie and shirt. I undo my belt and throw away the crumpled jeans. I remain with my socks and boxers. I shove my head under the sink and I do a shampoo. Then I wash my armpits and back. I take off my boxers and I try to wash the groin and inner thigh, I create a mess on the floor with water, soap and soil. I took off my socks and wash my feet. It is difficult because of my height and the smallness of the bathroom, but I succeed. Finally it’s the turn for teeth and nails. I use all the paper to try to clean up the bathroom. When I go out I'm hungry. The clean hair and beard made impress the waitress, who understand why it took me so much. With a smile she pours me the coffee and prepare me two toasts. I thank her. She looks at me sweetly, almost maternal, with her round face, wide hips forced into a ridiculous pink apron. I smile as I sip coffee, I smile for her dimples and soft hands that smell like coffee. She begins to talk but doesn't’t understand that my smile is just envy, poison against the sugar that gives me. Because she cannot hear the desperate cries of my bones.