In the Dessert (Take Two)

In the dessert, if you go too long with only sand to eat and drink and breath and see, you can go no farther with only sand. So there is water, shimmering with the same erotic, untouchable sheen as the golden circles dangling from the costume of a belly dancer. You can only get just so close-- never closer. Never there. Are we there yet, are we there yet, are we there yet? Now?
Never.
It's like a dance, or a chase scene. (You can't decide.) You take a step forward; the water laps a wave back. In your throat and your gut and your limbs is a feeling that falls somewhere between thirst and lust, and you think that maybe they are always, in the end, the same thing.
You want to cry, but there is not enough water in your body to wet your eyes.
In the dessert, you inevitably lose your mind.