We entered the sandstorm at dawn, with faces wrapped in shredded flags. We knew we wouldn't last long, our eyes burning like funeral pyres. We walked until our spindly legs would carry us no more. We set up camp in the belly of a beast, wide as a whale and twice as long. We barely made it through the night. You coughed and wheezed like a dying man. I pondered cutting out your heart just to find that eternal light. Your flesh became a thousand lines, intersecting all this way and that. I tried not to look into your eyes but they were as black as a moonless midnight. Crawl out from your barre...