What's it like to have OCD?
   Did I count the times I shut the door? One, two, or three?
What's it like to have OCD?
   I read my school assignment a few times too many, just to guarantee.
What's it like to have OCD?
   Every night, I leave my fiance in bed for a while, so I can walk around and check everything; are both doors locked? Is the Dawn where it's supposed to be? Is the sponge correctly aligned? One... two... three

My scars don't look like
Anyone else's-
They're more careful,
Organized, precise and
Exact.
Not light, but
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough
Never deep enough.

People always ask why
I do such pretty patterns:
Because this is the only thing in life
That I can really control
Control
Control,

And I find it so beautiful-
Though, not so much tragic.

My scars are not chaotic like a
Car-wreck,
They are consistent like a
Coma-
Proof that I was awake
The whole time I was sleeping,
And I could feel everything
Even though I could tell no one.
No one.

That this
Unconscious obsessive compulsion
Demands order
Order
Order, it
Insists by instinct,
An intricate simplicity.

Still, I will 'ever envy
Those stitched gashes, once
Gushing
Gushing
Gushing with surrender and
Serenity...
Each raised and rough coarse collagen fiber
To form a white flag
Forever etched in flesh;
To tell the world
They, were a slave to freedom-

I am only a slave
To *myself.

When I get nervous my tongue and palms itch like ants in my mouth and handfuls of spiders anxiety crawls up and down my spine
as my heart and mind race against each other
I shake as I freeze from the inside out
and ice feverishly pumps through my veins
it's not black inside my head but a putrid yellow
Gelatinous and pulsing and clouding my vision all I can see is a spiraling blur
and I don't realize how I'm clawing at my palms
Scraping my tongue against my teeth until I taste blood
I try to exhale the hornets nest in my chest and spit out the stingers one by one
there are so many voices, none of them mine and I want to scream over the chaos
but it gets stuck in my throat
with all the other words that won't come out
I stare down at my trembling hands, and realize how much panic it's under my fingernails

The spirit of Mulan lives inside these girls
she who transforms to go to war
she who chops her hair and binds her chest loose clothing, low voice
she marches to the battlefield
made of asphalt and alleyways
she hides in hoodies, armed with keys
to combat hidden enemies
these battles are fought in the night
far from pools of streetlight
she masquerades to avoid an invasion
she fights to protect her only home