The Silver Echo in a Silent Desert

The sun here does not just shine; it weighs upon the skin like a warm, heavy blanket. I can feel my breath slowing to match the rhythm of the Joshua trees—stiff limbs reaching for an indifferent sky.
I wore this silver bikini because you once told me that stars look cold even when they burn. Now, standing in the salt-scented wind of Mojave, I am a fallen star trying to remember how it feels to be whole again after our city life tore us into fragments across different time zones and missed calls.
My lace robe flutters like an old letter being read for the thousandth time—delicate, transparent, almost gone. There is something bitter about this heat; it tastes of salt-crusted skin and a youth we spent chasing shadows in neon alleys while ignoring each other's quiet desperation.
I have come here to let the silence heal me, or perhaps just to be consumed by it. I imagine you are still there—drinking cold brew at 3 PM, staring into an Excel sheet that feels like a cage. My body is warm from the sun, but my heart remains in winter’s grip.
I close my eyes and listen: only the wind whistling through dry needles and the faint hum of blood in my ears. I am here to be empty again—to let you go not with anger, but like a leaf drifting into an unknown river.

Editor: Summer Cicada