the first session

I am small, tucked into myself,
fidgety, and nervous.
He is an older, White man
from Jersey with an earring
in his ear.
He asks me about elementary
school, my father, my mother,
and my strengths.

I talk with my hands.
I am animated. I am crafting
explanations and recollections
of past lives, and he types
vigorously on the keys of
his laptop.
It’s small. It’s black. It
shakes on his lap.

I wonder what the screen says.
If I’m being cut down to size.
If I’m being analyzed on a
scale outside my comprehension.
If I’m being mentally processed
for some sort of unspoken
reward.

Barely thirty minutes pass,
and I lose myself in a sea of
tears. He’s mentioned grief.
Which means, I have mentioned
Chrissy, and I don’t even
remember my mouth forming
her name. I can feel the
tears sliding down
my cheeks, and I say to myself,
You will get through this.

We have six minutes left, and
he announces a question
that sounds like he wanted to
unleash it at least fifteen minutes ago and I am all
ears: “Do you have the link
to the initial ASD testing you
did?”

Of course, I do.
Of course, I would have it.
Why would I not?
I emailed it to him, and I
watched the results leave
my inbox and disappear to
a black hole of infinite
knowledge and time and
space to get to his inbox.

And then, I wonder . . .
what’s next?