her

 I’d see her from time to time. Each time she looked at me, she would so desperately cry for help, not by sound, but by her eye language. Engraved in my mind was the freshly cut shoulder length, dyed with a brown that faded into a lighter gradient. Her eyes were big, but not in a way that showed that she was shocked, but enough to show her admiration for everything. Her smile connects with the dimples at the side of her face to show that every expression will perfectly piece up, like a puzzle to show what she wants to express.

But beneath those very eyes, her bags weigh, dragging the once-tight skin down with them. Each time I see her, she gets more and more expressionless, losing what was her face’s impression. Surrounding the edge, the corner, and the bottom of her eyes, little droplets of water form but are not big enough to roll down her cheeks. Her face tells a story, though. 

The dried-up tears that lay horrified, and her soulless eyes that seek dreams that are too far to reach. 

“I dream to be…”

She would never know how to finish that sentence, that answer. She has no time to think about the full thing, her future.

Going back home, she’d meet with her parents and siblings, just to be bombarded with so many different problems. Her appearance, her grades, the food that she so passionately cooked for her family — they will never be satisfied. Slotting in many different schedules, for her to stay occupied, to forget and ignore all the flooding emotions that will attack her at the most unexpected time. She knows. She knows she’ll break down eventually, but she pushes that aside. 

Going to University. Home is a sick place for her, but her University is the same as well. Friends treat her as a place to rant, for money, or for homework questions. She’s being used, but she’s fine with that. People come to her for anything, but her? Where can she go? Who can she go to? And who can she entrust her pain with? 

She has a little friend group, with about the same 4 people that she walks and eats with. Every time they gather together, she usually nibbles on her food at the end of the friend group table, while the rest ramble on about their love lives. That curiosity filled her eyes with questions, wanting to ask but too scared to even touch their shoulders for awareness that she was here, at that moment.

Her previous relationship failed horribly, I assume. With old bruises and cuts left from her past like battle scars, sewn into her skin. Her body is her art piece, whether ugly or beautiful, it’s part of her story.

Those little moments when that spark of happiness floats back into her life for a tiny second, she treasures those. Those that she locks tight in her heart that sometimes she forgets that it exists. 

Each time a memory that she treasures so much gets reminded again, her face flushes with pink, the corners of her eyes turn upwards, and the little wrinkles decorate her face as if she’s a valuable painting.