// May 6th // 6:23 PM //
The train is embedded in a green forest, made of trees that are not all alike but somehow uniform in their reaching. These woody plants strive in the same way. There are yellow flowers clinging to the cutaway slope with its impossible cliff geometry. In my seat--the dark, stain-resistant, rough cloth--I am both uncomfortably warm and a little chilled. It's my torso that feels claustrophobically hot, and my stiff legs that shiver.
A few seats back, children speak a language that I don't know. Well, okay, it sounds like Spanish, so I do know a few words. The kids are using question words. Also behind me, someone has a phone that makes the same text noise that mine does. I'm waiting for [my boyfriend] to get back to me, to say something flirtatious or affectionate. He is probably busy with work, and with not being needy. I imagine, with minimal sanity, that he despises me.
[...]
The forest keeps blurring past my window, a jumble of jagged lines that draw skinny trunks and abundant soft leaves. The deciduous trees, delighted at springtime, are backed by a row of somber, dark conifers. Princesses with voluminous spirits and kings who know better than to rejoice.
A train is ferociously air-conditioned, the onslaught of chilled wind presumably whisking away the deep saltiness of many humans in a relatively small place. A headache is beginning just under my brow bone. We trundle past a candy-red house, and then a little plane of the same color, perched demurely in a small town's makeshift airfield. It looks vaguely old-fashioned, the tail made of square angles and jutting limbs.
The train has slipped out of the hypnosis of the forest, and now it's visible as a coating on far-off hills. From a distance, the variation of leaves is utterly lost.
In eighth grade my class went on an extended camping trip, the first leg of which was undertaken via train. I don't know if we rode this line at all, but we sped through California, changed trains in some dusty unknown town, and made our way to Colorado, or perhaps first to Utah. What I remember most clearly, I think from the return journey, was making out with [name redacted] when we passed through the tunnels. He was chewing pomegranate gum, which I remember because I went home and wrote a song about how sexy he was, in which the gum flavor figured heavily.
I wish [my boyfriend] were here for a kiss, or that I could sink into his warmth and fragrance. He always smells good: masculine sweat tempered with cologne, and an indefinable personal essence unique to him. I must smell boring in comparison, since I often forget to put on perfume. At least I'm mostly clean.
I love how he reaches for me when we're together. When we walk on the sidewalk, he holds my hand or curls his arm around me. Cooking in his apartment, he draws me to him as he gestures, explaining some epicurean principle. In bed, he presses kisses onto my hair. The pillows and comforter all smell like him.
I worry that I am not enough, or that enough is all I am. I worry that he wanted to get back together merely because I was the easiest option. If I ask him to, he'll tell me that I'm beautiful and intelligent. But I have to ask. And I hate asking, because it makes me feel weak. I worry that he will see me as weak, contemptible.
The train rolls steadily, undulating slightly with the land. Trees have surged up next to my window again, but sunlight shoves through the foliage disdainfully. Occasional meadows expose it hot and bright. Almost out of sight, down at the cleft of a valley, I catch glimpses of subdued whitewater.
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