How This Adds Up

How This Adds Up

It isn’t the quarterly report,

or the spreadsheet balanced to zero.

It’s the moment

you stopped by her desk

and listened—really listened—

as she told you about

the years before this job,

the small apartment,

the rain leaking through the ceiling

onto her first résumé.

It’s the silence after,

the way you found yourself

seeing her differently,

seeing the work differently too.

This is how it adds up—

not in numbers,

but in the stories

we begin to carry for each other.