When I eat I chew equally on both sides of my mouth
This is because if I don’t
I worry the teeth on one side will get cavities and eventually fall out
I touch with my toes the yellow stripes lining the stairs outside
alternating a different foot and different parts of my shoes every time
If I don’t the paint will stick to my feet
Turning my shoes the same yellow as the concrete
They’ve recently come in contact with
Now I know you think these notions are crazy and I agree
For people with obsessive compulsive disorder little everyday things
Can take a little longer
We think differently
And honestly I don’t mind that my mind minds things
Other’s brains don’t seem to be constantly thinking about.
My uncle, the child psychologist, once told my mother
I don’t have this illness
Because often I’m not bothered by my abstract obsessions
With frustration wrinkling her face she snapped back
That I most certainly do because they bother her!
My mom hates that I can’t stand to be in our living room
When the volume of our television isn’t on a number divisible by five
Or an even number if the digit’s below twenty
She’s afraid I’ll revert back to that time when I was in grade school
That time where I would wash my hands so much they cracked and bled
Whenever she tried to hold them
The pain for me was temporary but she tells me she can still feel the sting
My mother blames herself for my problems like your average parent does
I catch her thinking to herself
“Maybe if I hadn’t constantly clipped my daughter’s nails”
“She wouldn’t bite them until blood”
Maybe, but probably not
When she looks at me
I can see her thinking
“What if I’d never told her about the germs?”
“What if I had listened?”
"What if I'd done more to help?"
“What if I’d paid more attention?”
She doesn’t realize that she did
She’s always helped me
She was the one who listened while I cried as the monsters called bacteria
Crawled under my skin
Holding my crumbling hands
My mother, keeper of the non compos mentis
Never cried
Never yelled
Instead she took my ****** palms and sang
As she fixed them with Band-Aids, lotion, and kisses.
She’s always there to try and fix me when I fall apart
When I worried so much my hair grew thin
She gave me her own mother’s worry dolls
Telling me they would do all the fretting for me
she placed them ‘round my room
But I worried that my worries would make them too worried
And wondering if you could die from anxiety
I stuffed them in the back of my dresser drawer whispering,
“You’ll be safer here”
I want to do that to my mother
I know I cause her sleepless night
I can see her lying in bed wondering if I’m eating,
If I’m living
If I’m even breathing
You see,
My lack of sanity is slowly taking hers
This woman who raised me spent so long defending me from my demons
She forgot to fight off her own
Well now it’s my turn
I’ll tuck her safely in my dresser drawer
Nestled next to my old worry dolls
ThereI’ll keep her safe
I’ll take my meds
I’ll eat my supper
I won’t upset her
She’s my mother
She doesn’t deserve a crazy daughter
I'll Shield her from my worries to protect her from her own
Because that’s what love is
Love is the lotion on my hands
Love is changing the volume when no ones looking
Love is not understanding but still listening
And most importantly love is worrying
My mother shows her love by trying to keep me together
I’ll show mine by trying not to break her or myself apart
Today I missed my Mom for the first time in a long time. She calls and asks me how I'm doing on my own up here. I know she worries about me. I worry about her too, and to me that's love.