#my brain is a rotten cabbage and i'm a slave to routine

[college-of-lore-bard]

O.

C.

D.

I always thought it would be neater.

(As if mental illness could be spick-and-span.)

There was a show I loved, a man named Monk in San Francisco, adjusting and fidgeting and poking and prodding and scrubbing until ev-er-y-thing was Just So.

lined up from least to greatest, alphabetical, the gddamn Dewey Decimal System.

it seemed so tidy, orderly, exactamente.

I thought it was cleaning. I thought it was everything fitting in its place. I thought it was being a “neat freak.”

No one told me it's blood under your fingernails from picking from picking from picking

Because your stupid fingers broke the skin

&now.

You.

Can't.

Stop.

It hurts it hurts it hurts but you can't stop.

You know it’s stupid but you can’t stop, you know it’s stupid but you can’t stop, you know it’s stupid but you can’t stop

It's my obsession with the numbers three, seven, ten.

Three, seven, ten.

Three, seven, ten.

The inability to have a stack of four, a group of six, a singular item-

Even the words coming out of my mouth have to be birthed as triplets, have to fit an arbitrary quantity, like the one two three beat of a waltz i can’t stop spinning to.

Locking my door before I go to sleep: deadbolt, chain, push on the door.

Unlock it.

Do it again: deadbolt, chain, push on the door.

It’s the completely irrational fear that if i don’t the door will be broken down and i will be beaten to death, i tried to only lock the door once and that night i lay in my bed, sweating and shaking

until i climbed down the ladder of my children’s loft bed and fixed it- deadbolt, chain, push the door.

It's running late to class because

there were too many cracks on the sidewalk, I forced myself to step on one to just get it over with

and my whole leg felt like it was going to rot right off,

I took an extra ten minutes to avoid stepping on the shadows to make up for it, had to walk “correctly” to make my leg feel clean again,

had to ignore the looks as I walk down the sidewalk looking like a child playing a game

but honestly,

this one is not that fun.

Being so stressed you lose control of any logic, like the time Francisco found me trapped,

Pacing

seven steps forward, seven steps left, seven steps back.

seven steps right, seven steps forward-

seven steps right, seven steps back, seven steps left;

seven steps forward

Repeat

Repeat

Repeat

Dripping in sweat, legs aching,

Crying

Unable to break the pattern.

Everyone feels this way,

I say,

Because I'm okay with my food touching, my backpack is jumbled, my room a mess– I don't care what the books say about hoarding this is different

It's not OCD.

Is it really so strange that i can only blink when the hands of a clock are crossed, to understand that to blink at any other moment would bring a grief and calamity so terrible it could not be imagined.

You know it’s stupid but you can’t stop, you know it’s stupid but you can’t stop, you know it’s stupid but you can’t stop

I’m superstitious, I’m quirky, I’m fine.

I’m fine.

I’m fine.