I can't stop thinking about my poker dealer yesterday.

This morning, I sat down to my World Series poker table and said hello to my dealer, DJ. Like most of the dealers there, she was not from America and was very quiet spoken. I normally try to illuminate a little laugh from them by getting to know them and asking about their country and their life outside of this.

But DJ was a little different.

There was absolutely no life behind her eyes. There was no spark. There was nothing left.

Her flame has long been extinguished by the realities and shattered expectations of the world. Her gaze is steel and nothing at all except pale blue colors. Chinese. Overworked. Under-appreciated. Undervalued. Here to work, not here to live. 

But here’s the thing - She is stop-you-in-your-tracks, shut the hell up, beyond belief GORGEOUS. It’s very easy to tell that, behind the brutally tired eyes and the black tattered hair, there is a girl in there that could have maybe been a supermodel, laying in the warmth and the colors, being catered to if she wanted to. Maybe married to the rich, drinking mimosas in bed on Saturday mornings, not a care in the world.

You can see it in her eyes, what she would look like with a smile. If that spark was still there. If there was still something to see.

And I can’t stop looking at her and thinking about that. I’m not even trying to.

My brain keep auto-piloting back to her, making eye contact with her. To just try and lock a gaze, for just one single second in time, to maybe give her a glimmer of life. To see one single spark that might be left behind the mountains of dust thats already settled. To light it on fire and watch it burn. 

I want to see what she looks like all dressed up, in the way she feels best.

Her hair done and her in a red dress, full of possibility and wonder.

I want to hear what her life is like at home, what her favorite color is, what she dreams about at night.

I want to see her laugh across a dinner, drinking champagne and letting reality melt away through each moment.

But she never makes eye contact.

There’s nothing there. There’s nothing left.

Her stare goes behind all of us at the table, into the walls and below the carpets. It goes nowhere because there is nothing there anymore.

(Picture is not DJ by the way!)