counting breaths and blinks
makes it easier to detach
from hands where hands aren't wanted,
and lips and teeth and tongue and ****
and heat and sweat and rhythm.
heartbeats and seconds in packets of four
are better for the brain
than fists and blood and fear,
and ticks of the clock and fingertips tapping in time
beat uncertainty and helplessness
and not knowing if he's going to live
any day of the week.

i can wash my hands until they're red
(beet red, beat, beet red, beat)
and raw
(and dry and cracked and bleeding and bleeding).
i can write and re-write
and control and perfect,
perfect the verb because
perfect as an adjective is
impossible
(but nothing less will do).
i can line everything up and count it out even,
in fours or
in thirty-sixes,
(six times six, six six times, perfect square, perfect square),
and i can hope
that my neat tall stacks of the things i need to control
will finally outweigh
the scattered mountains
of the things i never could.

i can tell you how and when and where and what,
just please don't ask me why.