Non Persona

'Are you sitting here?' She asked.
Our eyes met for the first time. Hers were hazel brown with a tint of green. They matched her unkept dark brown hair and olive skin. Her curls were hiding her eyes a bit, but I could see beyond the frizz. And in her eyes: an ache. A seeking. A wish. A yearning for love in a lonely world. Yearning to be swept away. To be taken a thousand miles away. A yearning to be taken care of. A yearning to not be alone. At night, she cries of this yearning. She cries but her tears are silent. She doesn't want her middle aged bitter roommate to hear. Maybe if her roommate would hear, she too would yearn for another love. Or maybe she would laugh at her unabashed sense of romanticism. After all, bitterness yearns for company, not love.
She had loved before. A love so great that now she yearns for nothing short of the greatest love she could endure. Her knight would be tall. He HAD to be tall. And funny. He HAD to be funny. Her ex lover was neither. And she didn't love HIM at all. 
So she works in this cafe in the center of the city. 'Everybody comes here.' She thinks.
Yes, everybody. But maybe not tall and funny knights that would be her greatest love. She had been working in this cafe for over a year already. She worked through Covid. In isolation. In the winter. Through a storm. Through summer in the heat. Every day she greets people and every night she cries in yearning. Silent tears. But her eyes say it all. Her eyes scream for love greatest than the love she had endured before. Her eyes search for a listener in an ocean of talkers. 
'Yes. I'm sitting right here.' I answered. And then her shift was done. I didn't see her again. But her eyes lingered on. Reminding me that I, too, yearn for love greatest than anything I had endured. I, too, was crying silent tears at night. I, too, was aching for a listener in an ocean of talkers. I, too, was a romantic no matter how bitter my persona appears to be.