Morning begins with small noises—
                   coffee breath,
                     window hush,
   soft grammar of a room waking.

Somewhere under it all,
          your voice threads the air,
                            not loud,
                        just present—
   a melody the wall paint remembers.

Emails open,
       meetings queue,
       the elevator clears its throat,
       and there you are again—

       not speaking for me…
       only widening the door I might have kept closed.

In rooms I used to avoid,
         I hear you say: (without saying)

        “be kind first,
         be brave after,
         then… be kind again.”

I step forward,
  not because I must,
  but because your voice

  already went ahead and softened the floor.

At the crosswalk,
   the signal chirps…
       I wait the extra beat,

       your cadence teaching patience to the red hand.

In the coffee line,
   I meet a stranger’s eyes,
   your tone lifts my hello

   into something that lands.

Slack pings,
      phones blink,
      the world tries to speak over itself—

      your voice is the tuning fork
      I touch to the hour,
      and suddenly…

      everything holds a note
      it didn’t know it could.

By afternoon,
   I’m kinder than I planned,
   braver than I’d budgeted—
   because you keep finding
   new corners of my day to live in:

   the small talk I never had time for,
   the apology I owed,
   the joke that saved a meeting,
   the silence that let someone else bloom.

Evening arrives
        with the ordinary chorus—
                          dishes,
                       sidewalks,
                    door latches,
                          lights—

        and your voice settles
        into all of it like it belongs,
        unavoidable,
        automatic,

        so *very* _welcome_.

I used to think
  the day was something I carried…
  now I know it carries me—

  on a sound that sounds like you.