She accepted the slip of paper and began to read. Poetry was an opportunity not only to observe, but to express how one feels. It was as she read that many things were confirmed about Monika's position here, and it made her stomach sink. She was never the type of person to break anyone's heart, even if she believed there was something fictional between them thanks to her role in the memory.

In honesty, she would happily have tea or coffee with Monika, be a friend to help her through her sorrows.

"Wow," she was breathless. "You never cease to amaze me, dear. I should hope I haven't gotten a little rusty, myself."

It wasn't her name this time in various garbled nonsense, but it was a folded page she handed over with a flourish. She could only hope that she could express the truth through poetry, from the heart.

It clenches 'round the breast and wraps
So slow at first, but as it laps
Your humor bends until it snaps,
Left staggered, in haze;

But yet we sit, and stew, maligned,
Until we've given up, resigned
To overwrite ourselves; and find
A comfort in malaise.

We'd wish those doors thrown open wide,
A breath of air and step outside,
And set aside those tears we'd dried
Yet linger in our gaze;

Alas, they turn so soon to rhyme
And relish we that wretched time
Until our bondage turns sublime-
That amber prison's glaze!