The Waiting Room: Part III

The weight of her world, heavy with desperate hopes and desires to prove to herself what she is capable of, packed into that one, simple, two-letter word. In one utterance, it has become a foul, four-letter word that violates everything within her. Her axis has shifted and she sits on the chair in this little room. It is, if possible, more uncomfortable than the ones outside. Probably ones who come in here don’t stay long enough to notice. But she does, oh how she does.

Her pocket jangles with the last few pennies she has and she thinks about all the foolishly wasted ones she threw into this chance, tumbling on the wisp of a promise, as empty as her heart which, moments ago, had been brimming with wonderful, frightening possibilities. The echoes and rattles in it now seemed to find all the corners of this little room and reverberate back to her, head hung in hands, eyes stinging with hot tears she tries to hold back.

A wisp of cloth and a gentle presence, one she longs for but edges away from as he sits and she silently weeps her dreams into her trembling hands. He lets her cry for a while and she is surprised, expecting him to usher her out to make room for the next one, the one who will take chances she is again denied, who must surely be better equipped and smarter than she.

“Why are you so sad?” he softly probes at last and she thinks what an utterly foolish question he asks. He of anyone must know how long she has been waiting. Sometimes, she can remember nothing else.

“Don’t you already know?” she can’t help but snap, the tears tracing hot, glistening paths down her cheeks.

“Tell me,” he said, his patience more maddening than his denial. Who would play odds on this ever? She bemoans her fate silently but obliges, “I put everything into this, on this chance, onto you. They said you could send me, give me the things and the opportunities to go places.” She draws a shaky voice, scraped over the shreds of her last hopes, “I’m so tired of waiting. It’s all I’ve ever done. Sat out there in that damn room, waiting. Watching everyone else come here and then leave. I waved more people off who get to go where I want to and don’t. I don’t understand.” She thought about them, smiling as they left, asking her questions and making promises knowing she would never go with them. “Why can’t I go?” she demands, her voice breaking into as many pieces as her heart had minutes before, “Why do you always make me wait?”

Ragged Dress & Rainstorm Kiss

Curled up in a corner, mascara tears tattoo ink along her cheeks, painted hands reach for lipstick dignity. She wipes the grime and her empty heart, shaking hands bring the bright red tube to whispering lips. No small talks will draw out her confidence and her mirror shattered feelings of happiness when the night began.
And Boy, always Boy.
A ragged dress and rainstorm kiss paint the warning "Fuck Off" on her forehead. Red lips, newly painted, bring out the same color in her eyes, circled by shadows and cheap drugstore eyeliner.
Phone sits silent in her chipped polished hands. Everyone one click away and yet a lifetime to leave her so alone. Outside, too-loud laughter presses against her ears and she wants to drown it in the bathroom sink with her pride.
Heels click and stick on a tequila-baptized floor. She wants to wash the bitter taste in her mouth and keep washing away until all of it is gone.
Rejection and too-tight shoes pinch the last life from her soiled, bedraggled night.
She walks on her own from the flooded scene, no one to miss her or ask where she's been. A number folded in her pocket from a Nothingman, means nothing to her as she throws it away. It flutters to the gutter with the rest of her hopes for now. She is tired of Right Nows and tired of looking for Forever. Vodka-soaked mind tells her she won't find it here, stumbling across the rain-kissed street in a dark night daze.
A message blinks "Where r u?" and she blinks away her mascara tears.
Boy, always Boy.
Cigarette stench clings to her hair and dress, same as Boy left her a mess. But still clings.
Heart and head war violently and her thumb traces over the reply. The same way she started with goodbye. She trips on the curb and twists a heel, shot of pain reminds her to feel more than think. Corner sign blinks brightly. A shot of espresso and a dose of reality.
She turns off her phone, unanswered. Lipstick ring on an espresso cup, a kiss on porcelain, she won't give up. Baptized in a late-night rain and rung out of a night hardly remembered, she knows she won't keep searching for Forever. Forever will find her.
Maybe sitting here in a coffee shop in the middle of the night, wearing her sins in plain sight, a ragged dress and red lipstick lips. She curls her hair around her fingers and her lips into a smile. Maybe not a warning but an invitation to share a cup with her.