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A collection of poems written by Mary
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A new day dawns
A new day dawns
Bringing with it a raging
War
Creeping
Up the hill
That is my
Brain.
An internal struggle
That takes place
Daily
Me fighting
For my sanity.
I
Lose some battles
But reign victorious in others
Giving me strength
When there appears to be none.
My
Bones shiver with anxiety
And I sweat with fear.
Who will win
This battle
Against myself and I?
Two sides of the same
Coin
Each fighting
To be alive.
My opponent isn’t a bad character
Not really
It just wants to be alive
And doesn’t everyone?
I slip and fall
My armor clattering to the ground
As my opponent rejoices in my defeat of
This
Epic battle
That never ends.
It looks like I’m finished
But I am not
I shakily stand up and
Pull a Chuck Norris on it.
I am the victor right now, for now. I am the victor for now.
My war does
Not gain
Global coverage
Nor are people
Aware of it.
It’s a silent battle
One I fight alone,
Friends cheering from the sidelines
Waiting for me to crown victory.
But it never ends
The sun sets, the moon rises, the stars sink, the sun rises
And I get out of bed
And go to war with my head.
Not crazy.
My heart pounds
My brain is crowded
The temperature rises forty degrees.
I can’t think, I can’t think, I can’t think.
The teacher continues talking, but I can’t focus, my mind is on the fritz.
My stomach clenches into a tight fist, and doesn’t let go.
Anxiety overwhelms me and I’m left on the shore, unable to drown.
I’ll do anything, at this point, to relieve this anxiety, it’s unbearable. I’m in school, I can’t go home and
check to make sure the door is locked. I know it’s locked, I checked it three times this morning.
But what if my hands told my brain the wrong signal, what if I checked it
the wrong way? What if?
Someone mentions dogs and my mind goes into panic mode. Is the garage door shut? I’m in
math; I can’t go home and check. Did I rub my hands against the garage door? If not, then it was
probably a hallucination and the garage door is wide open
My dogs got out
And they’re dead on the street.
Images flood my mind of their mangled bodies.
I can’t think, I can’t think, I can’t think.
Countless other worries hurry to fill my mind, and I am left, stranded in this terror known as
OCD. The teacher asks me what’s wrong because of the panic
On
My
Face.
I mask my face into a neutral expression, squeeze in a smile.
“I’m fine.” I say.
They move on, and I’m stranded.
Kids stare as I straighten my desk, snicker as I rub my hands just so across
The
Smooth
Surface.
I’m not crazy, I want to scream.
Look at me, I’m not crazy.
My friends look at me, their eyes asking if I’m alright.
I lie and say yes.
I can’t think, I can’t think, I can’t think.
A kid accidentally bumps up against my desk, moving it a centimeter to the left.
I can’t think until this desk is straightened, which takes ten minutes.
I just want this to end, I’ll do anything. I just want
To go
A day
Without
This
Happening.
I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy.
People stare as I rub my hands raw,
As I slam my locker door ten times,
As I move my desk.
I can’t think, I can’t think, I can’t think.
The anxiety builds, and more thoughts crowd my mind.
I pound my fists against my forehead, in an attempt to squish the thoughts.
It doesn’t work.
And then I can’t stop, so I have to hit myself
Ten times
Or else something bad will happen.
I’m not crazy, I just have a disorder
That wants to make me its slave
And appear insane.
My enemy lives inside of me.
For some people
Their nightmares
Only
Exist
In
Sleep.
For others
They face theirs
Every day.
I am one of those people
Who has a demon
Living inside of their brain
Who wants to make me its slave
And dance atop my defeated body.
I will fight back
But my demon is strong
And it never leaves.
Guns and machines
Have no effect
On this demon that lives in my brain.
Logic doesn’t help either
And it rejoices in my pain.
Each day I get up
And am afraid
That I will fail
And I do fail
But not for long
Because my demon is not the only one who can fight.
I am at war with myself
A civil war within my brain
And no one can tell
Because it’s a war
That happens on the inside.
My demon is powerful
And can make me do things
Things that it makes me repeat
Until it drives me to the ground
And dances atop my shoulders.
My demon will never leave
Not really
Because it is made of me
And I am made of it.
Neither can live while the other survives
Truer words were never said.
Demons come in all shapes and sizes.
Mine just happens to be in my head.
No exorcisms will work on me
No magic cure to let me sleep at night
My demon will live
As long as I live
So for a long time
My demon
Will
Not leave its resting place of mockery
Inside my skull.
My brain’s on cocaine.
My brain is on cocaine
Never stopping
Always speeding up.
I’m a rollercoaster that only goes faster
And I want to stop
But the ride never ends.
Some kids get high
To make their brains speed up.
I wish mine would slow down.
The same brain
That lets me speed read, write poetry and novels,
Is the source of my trouble.
I don’t know why
Anyone would want
To make
Their brain
Go awry.
My brain’s on crack
And I can’t do anything about that
Except try to
Slow it down
Enough
So I can
Take control
Of my life again.
My thoughts are powered by Nascar
Thoughts whirl around
At breakneck speed
Circling around
And around
And around
They never stop
Not even at night
When everything else is off
But my thoughts are at daredevil speeds.
I just want to relax
But that’s impossible
When my thoughts cruise through
Only to circle back again.
They’ve made my brain their resting place
And they’re here to stay.
They’re stubborn, too,
And hard to move.
No other car
Can drive so fast
As the ones in my head
Going around my racecar track
Not alone
Every once in a while
I’ll forget I’m not alone
And feel sad
Distraught
Lonely
And Weak
I was never alone
Not really
Three million people
In
This country
Feel as I do
Like sometimes
There’s no light in this world
And no hope
Nothing to wake up for
When you’re a slave
To your brain.
But then I remember
I have friends
Great friends
Who
Are willing to stay up late
Texting or instant messaging
When my disorder is at war with me.
I have friends
Great friends
Who will distract me
By talking about Adam Lambert or Chris Colfer
Or showing me funny photos
Because sometimes I need a distraction
In order
To stay sane
And not die
Because of anxiety.
I have people I’ve never met
In real life
But we help each other
A messy, tangled web
Weaved of people all different ages
And races
Who all share one thing:
We’re OCD
I’m never alone
No, never alone.
Even though
Some nights
When my heart is racing and
I want
To
Cry
I feel like I might die
But I’m never alone,
No, never alone.
More than a Label.
I’m OCD. I say.
As if it’s my whole life
As if
That’s the
Only
Thing I am.
Not a writer, a singer, an artist
But just one thing: OCD.
He’s OCD. They say
Gesturing to
A boy
Enslaved by
His mind
But he’s not
Just OCD
He’s a musician
A gifted one too. A brother a nephew, a son and an uncle
That boy
Is more than OCD.
She’s OCD.
They say
referencing
A girl
who, too, is bound by chains to her mind.
She tries so hard
Every day
To defeat
This disorder
And yet she’s stuck
With
This label
That seems to consume her.
We’re more than just labels,
We’re people too.
We’re not jars in a cabinet,
Or books on a shelves.
We have likes and dislikes,
Favorite foods
And shows
But somehow we
Are stuck
With this label that shows
That we can act crazy
When we’re imprisoned
But we fight hard
And never give up
To try to become
More than the label.
Pills.
One, two,
Swallow them whole
‘cause if you don’t
Your brain will become whacked
Even more so
The serotonin levels are not where they should
Be
Which causes you to
Appear weird
So you swallow these pills
To aide in making it through the day.
But pills don’t do everything
And you have
To work
So hard
The hardest thing in the world
Fighting back
There
Are nights
When you want
To chain yourself
To a wall
Just so you
Will quit scrubbing your hands red
Until blood fills the sink.
So the paint won’t chip
Off your door handle
Which you bought last week
But you check it’s locked so much
That the paint wears off within days.
So you won’t compulsively pray
A slave to your demons
You want to stop more than anything
But you can’t.
There are mornings when you
Can’t get up
Because the day is so scary
Moments when
In class
You can’t talk
Because you have to repeat what you’re going to say
Ten times
Before you say it.
But you hate
Being drugged
And dealing with
The side effects
Of hard-to-swallow pills
But you know
That the other
Option is
Far worse
And so you raise your glass
As you gag on your pills.
Beautiful.
I am beautiful
Every inch of me
My messed up brain
And screwed up colon
My scars on my stomach
And the scoliosis on my back
My braces on my teeth
And the ink stains on my hand
From
Writing
Late into the night.
Every piece of me
Is beautiful
And
No
One can take it away from me.
Made of me.
I fight against myself
My demon is made of me.
A genetic mishap
My demon is made of me.
I can’t kill it
Because it is made of me
And still
I’m sad
Because I’m my own worst enemy.
Doubt.
Doubt is a scary thing
A powerful thing
A demonic thing
Made possible
By evolution.
Everyone has doubt
I take it to an extreme
And am constantly
Questioning things
And not in a good way.
O C D
Those three small letters
They screw up my life all day
Making me crazy.
Diagnosis
You start
Behaving
Strangely
Doing things you can’t resist
And worrying
About
The smallest of things.
Sometime later
Be it weeks or
14 years
You
Sit down
On an examination table
And join the club
Of OCD.
The Club
I belong to an exclusive club
A club I’d rather not
Belong to
A club people join
Not by choice
But
Because they have to.
There are no dues
No secret handshake
No
Oath we say when we join
Almost
Everyone
In the club
Takes pills
Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa and more
New drugs coming out of the market promising no side effects
Like Compulsin
Oh and don’t forget Lexapro.
Many of us
Go to therapy
Psychotherapy, ERP, CBT
We’re all around you
Three million of us
In this country
We call home
Neighbors
Classmates
Teachers
People across the street
One in one hundred
Who belong to this club
This club where I fit in.
This club I want to leave.
Stereotypes
The media puts out these stereotypes
Of what people with OCD
Behave like.
The media groups us
And our complex disorders
Until we’re simple: all people with OCD MUST be afraid of germs, all people with OCD MUST count
compusivley.
It’s gotten to the point
Where I’m afraid
To say
What I am
Because people think they
Understand it
When they don’t.
You’re Not OCD.
You
The girl who claims she’s OCD when
She sorts her M&M’S.
You’re not OCD.
You
The boy
Who jokingly calls his friends OCD
Because they
Are perfectionists.
They’re not OCD.