The air is drier in the desert.
You can taste it
as it streams through an open window.
It roughens your breathing
and coarsens your tongue.

On most nights the stars are brighter out here,
and the light of the moon shining on the tarmac can blind you.
But not tonight;
tonight, there is no moon,
and the stars seem duller than usual.

People always drive for a reason.
They have somewhere to go,
or something to get away from.
But I have no Why.
There was a Why once but it's gone. Lost.

Something outside squeals as I hit it.
Squish it. Churn it up.
Kill it.
It's dead now but fuck it. It's gone.
It was small and weak anyway. It was stupid. Deserved it.

I pull over
to smoke and clear my head.
To try to remember where I left it.
That's when I see him on the backseat,
laying there. My Why.
Glistening.
Bloody.

I haul him out into the desert
to feed the coyotes
and satisfy their lust for flesh.
Then I'm driving again.
Alone but confident. In control.

Already I miss him,
my Why.
But fuck it.
There's more where that came from.

Because there's no moon tonight, 
and the stars seem duller than usual.
And in the pitch black twilight of a moonless night
they won't see the blood.