Therapy has gotten too expensive or always was but there was a time I thought a professional’s advice or guidance was needed but now it’s not that I seek answers so much as someone to listen without judgment or interruption so instead of taking the long bus ride to my old therapist’s office between the Chinese food takeout counter and the stationery store—isn’t it funny and lovely how we still sell and purchase letterhead, envelopes, and journals when so many have fallen out of practice at handwriting even their own names—I venture a few blocks past the giant fountain with birds chirping and children shrieking in the cold water to visit my favorite statue of the bronze couple on the bench, the man reading a book with the woman reading over his shoulder, and I sit beside them like they’re expecting me and tell them about my late rent, my mother’s anxious calls I haven’t yet returned about my father’s test results, and the violinist I’d fallen in love with for as long as it took him to fall in love with me until the fear of being someone’s beloved made me forget any tender feeling he or his music had evoked, and as I breathe and blink hard to slow the tears, a beautiful young woman places her hand on my shoulder and asks me if I’m okay so I look up and tell her yes, sorry for being weird, and she smiles and that’s enough therapy for one day so I rise and start walking as the golden setting sun burns bright like it’s lighting the way home just for me.