if this is therapy, then i am all in

'There are tissues
on the windowsill,
just open the curtains.'
I paused, 
measuring the safety of this gesture.

Tears were gathering 
at the edges of my beard.

I remembered
as I walked from my car,
across the lot, 
I passed a couple sitting on their porch,
having a smoke.

Those people,
on that porch,
were directly outside 
and across from the window,
of the sill,
that held the tissue,
which was just behind the curtain, 
that I was about to pull back.

She noticed my pause.
'Oh don't worry the glass is glazed,
they won't see you.'

Of course.
Makes sense.
Revelatory in some ways.
An auspicious start.

'And it keeps the heat out.'
She added alternatively.

This first session was full
of moments like this.

Idiosyncratic adjustments
threaded through my
narrative.

Smile now.
Stop smiling.
Clench fist, 
then cross leg,
uncross leg,
and lean forward.

I was in that pose when it happened.

[sidebar]
The original title of this piece
'yesterday my therapist 
laughed at me',

initially,

seemed to encase 
my entire 
first experience.

Somewhere between nodding
to the smokers
as I returned to my vehicle
and checking tomatoes at Metro,
other thoughts
dropped in.
[back to the room]

Her laugh
was a startle,
then a choked bit,
then an end with an earnest
'What the hell?'

It launched and fell immediately. 
No more than a blurt really.

A fluorescent
highlighter on a crisp new
Post-it.

And in retrospect
it did seem to explode
like a bruised funny bone.

So my perspective shifted.
But before that

I was recounting a painful event,
laying out the stones, 
rewalking the path,
naming names.

And then I was stunned
when I expected neutrality.

I thought that
professional impartiality 
could quell human zeal.

'Are you supposed to do that?' I asked.

'Sorry, sorry, sorry ...' 
She flustered back at me.
'but really, 

what the hell?'

What the hell.

A phrase I have met
at this exact crossroads 
in my mind many times.

The handshake
with this common ground
was tenuous
even now.

It was confusing.
It was a gripping bit 
of making eye to eye contact
with reality.

But it was clear.

And it was genuine.

I liked the sense making
happening to me.

I liked being made 
a reliable narrator
in my own story.