Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language and violence.
I tried to explain my OCD to my father late on a Saturday morning over coffee.
Only he hadn’t had a shave so he drank his black and I hadn’t started to shave so I drank tea with two lumps of sugar and cream.
For a long time, I sat and stared at him hoping the pain in my eyes would translate easily.
Hoping my screaming when the pictures in my head got loudest and my brother’s insulting words made him proudest could begin to explain the stinging rain of pins and needles, the only thing medication’s ever given me.
And if I could explain my anxiety perfectly, perfectly, perfectly then maybe I could tell him about my obsessions: when I see him die and my obsessions where his bullets fly and I die and try to explain with some scampering selection of words spilling and spattering out of my hanging mouth that the anxiety, the self-doubt, hope I said that right, hurts me. Nope, I said that wrong. The self-doubt. The self-doubt. The self-doubt. The self-doubt. The self-doubt.
Oh, now you’re watching me, now you’re touching me, now you’re telling me who I should be, now you’re breaking me and crushing me and you still think your words are great advice that might actually work better than cleaning the tap five times a day and washing my hands six times and repeating my good night until it feels just right and wondering how perfect I should be.
And I struggle to remember if it’s just one of my fantasies: if you hold a candle long enough for the wax to start dripping will you burn me and thrash me and strangle me without a word or will you put it down and watch me cower like a great black bear retreating - the symbol of my power, my hope, defeated.
And if that wasn’t reality will you forgive me for how I screamed at it? Will you walk away - will I ever see you again? Will you leave me home alone with these demons rattling my bones and the old couch blackening in a shower of flames as I toss and I turn and I squirm and I toss and I roar out in pain?
The voices screaming, my tears streaming, “Die Schizo, die! Fry Schizo, fry! Hope they zap you alive!"
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This poem, tells the struggles of a person where the generation before them always says words to put them down and kill them slowly without realizing or caring, OCD is definitely a threat to gen-Z, they all try to be perfect in order to make they're parents proud but its never good enough for the parents and no matter how hard they try, it will never be good enough for parents.
Hi Moonglade,
This is a really powerful poem and depiction of OCD - I think you did a terrific job and there really isn't much I would change at all.
First, I think the prose poetry format works really good for spoken word, as well as with the theme because the extra repetition shows this anxious / obsessive thinking quite well. I think it'd be interesting if some of the repetition was a bit more continuous (ie. if the "perfectly, perfectly" came up again at the end as a kind-of bookend. You can check out my YWS Article on Slam Poetry / Spoken Word poetry for a few more techniques specific to spoken-word that could be incorporated.
I really like how the examples you used were so varied and got at both the physical and mental manifestation of what the speaker is dealing with. Another favorite aspect is how the color black became a symbol from the beginning with the black coffee, then the black bear, then the darkening flames. I don't know that you have to directly say it is a "symbol of my power, my hope, defeated" - as that felt a bit too on the nose to directly say what the metaphor is pointing to. For instance when you use metaphor earlier in the poem here: "Only he hadn’t had a shave so he drank his black and I hadn’t started to shave so I drank tea with two lumps of sugar and cream." part of the awesomeness of that image is you don't have to say what the metaphor means - you can let the reader sort of interpret and give them room to read into that. The contrast between the two in such a simple moment is grown later in the poem and doesn't need an explanation within the poem itself.
I also think if you're going to keep that sentence in, a semi-colon might be better as I read it as a 3 part list ie. 1) power, 2) hope, 3) defeated first.
Your couple of instances of rhyme were good as well - like fly/die and home / alone / bone - these are especially good for spoken word and I think build up the drama of the moment - I'd really like to hear you read this actually to see how it would be delivered.
One little critique - that final sentence should pack a lot of emotional punch at the end and I think the voice shouting "Die / Fry Schizo" certainly does, but do feel like "zap" feels a bit soft / casual? and I'm wondering if another word might be used there.
Overall this poem was a very vivid and dark depiction of what it can be like for someone with OCD and specifically delved into a speaker that felt a lack of recognition from their father and experienced a set of invasive and destructive thoughts because of the OCD as well. You show how some of these minute experiences can build together to create quite a difficult and whole-consuming experience for someone suffering with this. Thank you for sharing, and I hope if this is something you experience at all that hopefully there is someone in your life you can share about it with - maybe even using this poem to do so.
Keep on writing! You've got talent with spoken word / prose poems and I hope you give it another try in the future!
alliyah
Thank you so much for the review, alliayh! Those suggestions help a lot. I recently got a diagnosis of Autism and OCD and this poem kind of was like an emotional outlet. Thank you for reading.