to have someone listen
 with eyes and words offered in peace
 and make promises you know she’ll keep
 and coo at cute colleagues’ babies
 and smile behind tears we all so often hide…
 
 it makes a Monday bearable,
 a coffeehouse tea taste smooth and soothing,
 a repressed voice feel fulfilled for the first time in years,
 and a view into the future shine bright with silver linings