Enigma

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Their gazes met many times, his out of tenderness, hers out of curiousity.

                                                             "Why is he looking at me?"

They talked but rarely face to face. He was too shy, she just never knew how.

                                                     "What would I even say to him?"

They laughed but it was rarely togrther. He just wanted to see her smile, she just did not understand.

                                           "How is that supposed to be funny?"

He tried to get her to see him for who he was and show her what he saw in her. She just could not connect the dots.

                                        "He does not really know me, does he?"

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Rain, they both loved it but to her it was so much more important. It connected her to a feeling of happiness, one of the rarer emotions she allowed herself to experience. So as the clouds poured their surrows and the raindrops pounded the pitch in grief, she felt herself connect to the larger world. She found peace within herself.

He looked out his window with much kinder eyes. Beauty is what he saw, everything that he saw he believed possessed beauty, even her. The aesthetics of the world, of living reached out to him and he submerged himself in it freely. Content to give himself away. So to the lulling strum of the rainfall's march he tucked into a book, his mind filled with her eyes, the vibrations of her voice and visions of her smile. He wanted her, he yearned, he wished.

As the thunder rolled and the clouds darkened, expressing discontent her body warmed with excitement and affection for the rain, until she handled a small device with care. In the middle of her palm she cradled her phone, her eyes glancing over his messages, retracing the digital letters over and over again, it was then she truly became one with heaving sky. Her body roares with emotions, ones she could not begin to comprehend. Only one, just one she recognized, guilt. She did not know how to love, at least not that type of love. This was not about the flesh, it was about the inticate mind and the depth and complicated nature of the soul. She could not answer, she would not answer. Not to him, not now. She would try to forget, she would put in some distance, hope he forgets. There is nothing she could do... she could not say "I love you too".

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His eyes pleaded for her attention when they met next, she pretended not to notice. His previously hidden desires seemed so apparant to her now, propelled at her wih full force, almost too much to handle. She ignored his gaze on her hands and the moments he'd brush his fingertips against hers and instead retracts her hands, recognizing his want for their fingers to intertwine; his focus to her face as though she was the only person there, the concentration in his eyes as though he was envisioning connecting their lips; his eratic searching for her eyes, seeking the answers she tucked away in their depths.

Everything she felt, everything she thought was complicated. She really did not know what was the best thing to do so she avoided him. Knowing she was hurting him but wasn't breaking his heart worse? What was the right thing? What could she do? She wanted to like him, maybe that would put an end to the situation, the turmoil she is suffering through. But she didn't, she couldn't. More than anything she wished he did not love her to begin with, or at least kept his feelings to himself. She could not deal with it and so she did not. For he liked pretty things, girly things, happy things, romantic things. She was never one for pink.

He tried to win her affection, yet in response barely got a reaction. He wondered what he did wrong, was it something he said? He really could not see their lack of compatibility the way she did, to him it was a good thing. And so he questioned, "Did she not like my gifts? Is there something else i could give to her, say to her or do so that she would accept my love?" It tore him apart, slowly then all at once, again and again, painful each time. Was he not enough? What does she want? He thought she cared about him deeply. Why else would she his interest? Why would she check in on him? Why did she listen when he spoke about the things he loved?

                                        ... Maybe she doesn't like him at all.

Why else would she avoid his gaze when they hang out?

Why else does she shrug of his compliments?

Why else she in unphased when he references to her in the things he says to everyone?

Why else would she not talk to him?

Maybe she never liked him.

He did not know what to think, what to do; why won't she give him a sign, end his torment. He should give up, shouldn't he? But why doesn't he want to? He should protect himself; protect his feelings.

Why is she beautiful?

                                                       He wished he did not love her

                                                                                   Not like this

                                                                                 Not right now

She drifted further and further away, her mind telling her it was the right thing to do. She absorbed herself, in other places, in other things, in other people. She wanted to forget, to forget about him, to forget about his kindness, his attention, his affection... his love. She doesn't deserve it, would never deserve it. Because she did not love, did she. She could not have, right?

She only treated him as a friend

                                                  She forgot she grew up believing

                                                                          True love is found

                                                                                              in

                                                                    deep routed friendship

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Feb. 24. 2021

#EWCM5

Prompt: Pink, Love, Aloof