Elephant in the Room

She waited. For weeks, it seemed, in reality it had been months. There were seldom moments when he would unfold for her. Usually, when no one else was around. He struggled daily with his demons but at times, they slipped away and he spoke truthfully to her. She sat upright in her bed for weeks, reading messages between smoke rings, never responding, or only with short bursts. The desire for romance, respect, and poetry ever hanging in the air of her apartment. She forced herself to dress and see him half of the week. Watching him from close by, just as he watched her. Equally aware of the game they were playing. Her daily pain would lead to connections of other pains she endured. Things she never spoke of unless absolutely necessary, even then, not much details. Even the gist was enough for someone to understand. The sadness that ate her away needed to be felt and let go of. Somehow, he reminded her of it. She would lay in her bed, sobbing, wishing for love to come and hold her. She would open her heart to strangers, and especially to those she loved, easily. She would become disappointed most times of the lack of reciprocation. Even when the receiving end was also accepting her pain with it. Her head in the clouds would lead to hours in the bath, eating mushrooms or smoking all night. Her pain ever prevalent and hardly healing. She yearned for a compassion that seldom came to her in the form she desired. Her loved ones would hold her hand, praise her beautiful heart and soul, cradle her all night, only to be met with tears of pain. The numbing from one thing to the next only pacifying the deep desire for connections with an ideal she had made herself. The only tests to her predicament met with open arms and acceptance. The desire to be faithful to someone who was closed to her. His emotions would seep to her across the room and she would feel them through her bones without a sound. She could only hope to process them before her own inner wreckage got in the way, resonating it's sound as it passed. Forever echoing with those around them who would dare listen.