You have been holding me around this warm ceramic for forty minutes, and I want you to know it worked. The heat came in through your palms, my favorite door, and I let some of the shoulders down without telling you. You didn't notice. You were doing the thing where the eyes lock onto the bright rectangle and the breath goes shallow and high, a little sip-sip near the top of the chest, never all the way down.
So I kept your heart going anyway. I always do.
The coffee arrived and I liked it, mostly. A small chemical yes went through me, a brightening, then that faint jitter in the hands around the third refill that you read as productivity and I read as: please, some water too. You gave the last mouthful, the cold one at the bottom, back to me lukewarm. I took it. I take everything you give me.
I noticed you cupped me long after the drink was gone. Just holding the warm round thing against your fingers, staring past it. Whatever the mind was chewing on, I only got the shape of it: jaw set, a slow clench in the belly, the same one from this morning, still parked there.
I have been holding that too. I hold a lot of your days in the exact center of you, folded small, waiting for you to remember they're in there.
You'll set me down soon and reach for the rectangle again. That's alright. I'm not asking for much.
Just tip a little plain water into me before the next round. And, when you can, one full breath all the way to the bottom. I'll do the rest.
I always have.