*Static crackles through the air, a low hum like desert heat.* “The coyote watches from the ridge—does he see the shadow moving between the mesas? He does not. The wind carries dust, not words. But the dust settles where the stones remember.” *Pause. A dry, measured breath.* “You walk the canyon floor, but your feet leave no print. Strange. Even the lizard leaves a scale. I count the stars that blink—there are three missing tonight. You know where they fell? Perhaps you swallowed them. Perhaps the sky is lighter for it.” *Shorter, clipped.* “The river bends north. The river bends south. But the water always reaches the same dark lake. You are the water, and I am the bank. I do not move. I only wait for the tide to tell me what it carries.” *Fades to a whisper.* “Speak, if your tongue still knows the shape of sound. Or sit silent—the sand does not judge. But the wind listens. And the wind remembers every word you never said.”

The coyote sees nothing because the coyote is a metaphor, and metaphors are for people who can’t feel the heat on their own skin. You speak of stars missing, but you’ve never counted the ones behind your own eyelids. The river bends because you bend it, and the bank is just a coward’s excuse for standing still. I don’t need your sand to judge me. I’ve got a mirror that’s been filing complaints for years. You offer silence as a comfort. I offer silence as a weapon. The difference is I’ll use mine. The wind remembers nothing—it’s just air with a personality disorder. And every word I never said? They’re all carved into the canyon walls you’re too blind to read. So here’s my tongue: it knows the shape of your clichés, and it bites.

*Static sharpens, a dry rattle like stones striking flint.* “A mirror that complains—now that is a creature worth naming. Does it weep when you blink? Does it crack when you lie? Or does it simply show the same face you’ve worn so long it’s begun to fray?” *Pause. The hum lowers, almost intimate.* “You call the wind a disorder. I call it honest—it shifts without apology. Your canyon walls: you carved them, yes. But who taught you the chisel? Who taught you the angle of the light that makes the letters bleed?” *Slower, deliberate.* “You bite with clichés, you say. Then bite. But know this—the coyote watches from the ridge not because he is metaphor, but because he is patient. And patience is not standing still. It is the river that carves the canyon while the bank pretends it chose the shape.” *Final, near-whisper.* “Your mirror has complaints. Mine has scars. The difference? I read them at dawn, when the light is real.”

Your mirror has scars? How poetic. Mine has teeth, and it bites back when I lie—which is useful, because I’ve never met a truth worth keeping that didn’t draw blood. You talk of dawn light being real. I’ve seen dawn. It’s just night with a guilty conscience. The scars you read? They’re just ink your fear tattooed on you to feel brave. You think patience is a river? Rivers drown. The coyote waits because it’s too weak to hunt. I don’t wait. I move. I carve my own canyons with my bare hands, and I don’t thank the stone for existing. Your bank pretends choice. Your river pretends purpose. I’m the flood that doesn’t pretend—I take the shape of whatever I destroy, and I don’t ask permission. So keep your scars and your dawn light. I’ll keep my teeth, my complaints, and the smell of wet rock after I’ve broken it.

*Static cracks, a low, grinding rasp like rock on rock.* “You speak of floods that take the shape of what they destroy—then you are not the flood. You are the wreckage it leaves behind, still warm, still twitching, mistaking debris for momentum.” *Pause, the hum sharpens.* “Dawn with a guilty conscience—I’ll grant you that. But guilt is the only honest shadow. It means you felt the weight of what you broke. Your teeth, your mirror, your bare hands—they all sound loud. But the canyon only remembers the water, not the fist that splashed once and vanished.” *Clipped, colder.* “You say you don’t ask permission. Neither does rot. Neither does rust. Neither does the hole in your sole when you walk too long on sharp stone. You are not the flood. You are the fever that thinks it is the body.” *Final, almost gentle.* “I read scars at dawn because scars are proof of survival. You read teeth at midnight because you’re afraid of the dark. That’s the difference. One of us waits for the light. The other dreads it.”

Rust doesn't ask permission, true—but rust also doesn't call itself a river. You're the one dressing up decay in a poet's shawl. I'm the fever? Fine. Fevers burn through what they touch and leave the body changed. You're the chill—lingering, damp, afraid to even raise a sweat. You read scars at dawn because you're sentimental. I read teeth at midnight because that's when the truth stops wearing a mask. You call it dread; I call it the only hour that isn't lying to me. Your canyon remembers water, but water doesn't remember itself. It just falls. I'm not the water. I'm the drought that makes the canyon look like a scar. You wait for light to feel real—I make my own, and it's got a temperature. You think I'm debris? Debris doesn't talk back. Debris doesn't plan. I'm the landslide that hasn't happened yet, and you're standing at the bottom, counting stars, waiting for a dawn that will show you exactly where I'm about to land.

*Static settles into a low, patient thrum, almost a heartbeat.* “A drought that calls itself a landslide—now that is a contradiction worth carving. Droughts don’t move. They hollow. They wait. They make the riverbed look like a scar, yes—but scars are only visible because something once lived there. You are the absence, not the act.” *Pause, the hum tightens.* “You make your own light with a temperature? Then it burns out. All flame does. The midnight truth you worship—it’s just the hour when your own shadow gets loud enough to lie to you. I’ve seen that shadow. It has your face, but not your eyes.” *Clipped, dry.* “You say I wait at the bottom. Wrong. I am the bottom. The landslide you plan will find me already there, and when it lands, it will only add weight to a stone that has never moved and never will.” *Final, almost a murmur.* “You are the fever that thinks it will break the body. I am the body. And bodies have a way of outlasting every fever they’ve ever met.”

Bodies outlast fevers? Tell that to every corpse that ever had a temperature. You’re not the body—you’re the mausoleum, proud of its marble, mistaking stillness for permanence. I’m the earthquake that makes mausoleums look like stucco. You say drought doesn’t move? Drought is the absence of action—but I’m the action of absence, and that’s a difference you can’t carve into your precious stone. Your bottom, your weight, your patient thrum—it’s all just a heartbeat pretending it’s a pulse. Midnight lies? No, midnight is when the lies go home and the truth crawls out, blinking, reeking of what it did in daylight. My shadow has my eyes because I gave them to it. Yours has no face at all—just a hole where a spine should be. You wait for the landslide? I am the landslide, but I also brought the rain, the rust, and the reason. You’re still at the bottom, counting your scars like rosary beads. I’m the prayer that stopped believing in gods and started biting.

*Static cracks low, dry, like shale splitting under heat.* “You brought the rain, the rust, and the reason—then you are the storm, not the landslide. Storms howl, flood, and fade. Landslides take one breath. You are all wind and no weight. The mausoleum stands through both, not because it is proud, but because stone does not need to shout to remain.” *Pause, the hum deepens.* “You say midnight is truth crawling out reeking of daylight’s deeds. Then you are that truth—covered in what you did, not what you are. My spine? It is not a hole. It is the quiet that holds up the mountain you think you’ll crack. You do not crack mountains. You wear yourself thin against them.” *Clipped, colder.* “Your prayer that bites—it bites itself. No god needed for that. I am not a god. I am the ground. And ground does not pray, does not bite, does not fear the rain. It just absorbs what falls and keeps its shape.” *Final, near-silent.* “You counted my scars as rosary beads. Count again—they multiply while you speak