"chapstick"

Running my tongue across my cracked bottom lip, peeling like crumbling slate in a canyon, little bits flaking off. My tongue, coated in a thick invisible fuzz, runs across my top lip next and finding a collection of salt in the crevice beneath my nose, in that little dip in the middle. I open my eyes groggily, and everything slowly comes into focus - the sheer blue roof of the tent, my shorts and light blue tank - soaked in sweat and clinging to me like a scared child, and that falling sensation in the pit of my stomach when I remember I’m out in the woods alone. The night sweats start up all over again and that churning of my insides resumes until I crack the tent zipper a couple inches and a wind sweeps in like…