Blossoming Neon by Robin Linden

I meet Marla on an afternoon train from downtown to tomorrow. The seats are velvet and red, and I notice her because she has desolate eyes dusted in glitter and a smile that reminds me of a rotting cantaloupe. She is looking out the window like she wants to fuck the mountains that pass us by. I am looking at her.

I say, “Is this seat open?”

She says, “I’ll tell you about my sins if you teach me how to dream.”

“Deal.” She shakes my hand with thimble fingers.

So I take the spot next to this woman I have always known but never understood, and her skinny thighs press into mine: bruises on her knees blossoming neon shades of purple. Marla speaks in half-syllables, her monotone steady and never-ending like the train track beneath us. Sometimes I focus on her voice rather than the words because it’s honey and sweet, and I don’t want it tainted by the harshness of her memories.

“I like to steal walking canes from pervy old men. I treat the people I care about as therapists or priests. My mother does not particularly love me. She’s deeply lazy, and it’s a strenuous task.”

Marla has a pretty skull, and carnal cells, and I pluck cerulean strands of memories from the folds of her brain while she talks. She tells stories of childhood: flashes of genesis burning opal; her thoughts smelling like cherry lozenges and lemon tea bags.

My favorite is a fever dream from when she had just turned twelve.

“I used to snort Whole Foods supplements in the alley behind my therapist’s office every Thursday night. Ashwagandha and Vitamin B.” Marla says she liked the vitamins because they suppressed her recurring urge to lick rocks. One day, she got bored, as women do, and she stole Lorazepam from her mother.

“I crushed it beneath my foot and smeared the dust across my gums.” I picture her tiny, ink-stained fingertips; molecules of bathroom-cabinet Benzos sinking sweetly into the spaces between her teeth. I eat Marla’s stories like Marla eats Xanax, and I hide her consonants, her half-chewed vowels, beneath my tongue.

“This was how I learned to live. You should really check your own mother’s medicine cabinet. You never know what people are hiding.”

“I will,” I say, though my mother had slipped away sometime between yesterday and uptown and had likely taken any good pharmaceuticals with her. Maybe only expired Propranolol remains, and a sad bottle of Tylenol.

“Do you already know how to dream?” I ask, and her eyes soften.

“I know how to exist.”

“Those are not the same thing.” She sighs, and I run a hand through her dark hair. She kisses me, and her lips taste of Ativan and diet Cherry Coke. I can see the lost souls of teenage boys beneath her tongue. I feel tears on my cheekbones, but I can’t tell if they’re mine or Marla’s. They have a saltiness to them that reminds me of her untamed soul and lonely body.

“I can’t ever dream without remembering.” She confesses this like a child whose stolen a cookie. I trace my finger across the topography of her legs, pretending I can map her emotions and let it lead us home.

“Close your eyes and imagine all the colors of everything you’ve ever felt. Blue where you’re empty and grey where you grieve. You’ll fall asleep and wake up whole.” She nods, and I taste the edge of her lips again. Her smile is pink and pretty; her eyes, still barren and looking for something to love. The train rattles along its track. Her tears begin to dry as she places her head on my shoulder. I imagine that if I could swallow her stories slowly enough, I could teach her to dream in the hues she tries to hide. 

Robin Linden

Image: Interior of a train with red seats and windows showing a view of a station. From pixabay.com