O.C.D.
(2021)

Oh, gee — OCD
Got my mind spinning like an old CD —
Oh, see me? I’m the guy in the back
With my mind on a roll like an old 8-track.
It’s a fact that I did it, but the OCD’s
Like, Yo, what if you didn’t? better check one or three
More times — better yet, better check it like like five —
Hundred — better check your whole life.

When people throw the word around like, ‘I’m so OCD’,
I’m like, Yo, you may not know what you’re professing openly —
Though you be so meticulous
It’s ridiculous,
This isn’t what I mean —
I mean an incompleteness
In the center of my being.

As a matter of fact there’s several types —
Don’t obsess with how they’re categorized —
There’s checking things, like locks or lights,
Or checking if you’re sick when you’re quite alright —

There’s the symmetry-type: objects —
This needs to be right where it’s not yet;
But where it should be is so obvious!
— It’s not a big deal but your thought-obsessed.

Some are non-compulsive — there’s no C, they’re just pure-O,
A seed of thought that grows and grows and never stops its urgent growth
Till you’re engrossed — it’s all you know until you fall sleep and after,
Even though rationally you can patently see that the thing doesn’t actually matter.

See decisions get made up in the prefontal lobe —
Like, ‘hey my brain, did we make this surface clean?’
Or ‘where’s this thing go?’
And then below, in the limbic system, this can get reinforced,
For it’s the site of our emotions, with its risks and rewards.

But when they go rogue,
As is known to happen
Then the ventral striatum
Can snap its cords
And zap the cortex
Into random reactions —
That’s when facts and rationality can really subside,
And then obsessive thoughts repeatedly lay seige to your mind.

I was in my early 20’s —
I was doing pushups,
Deciding how many
I should do. 22?
That’s my age. That’s plenty.
— So then its settled, I’ll do 22 for every
Single day till I’m 23,
And so on till I’m dead —
But then a little thought
Made its way into my head:
How you gonna do the
90 pushups when you’re 90?
A hundred when a hundred?
— That doesn’t seem likely.

This little impasse
Became an obsession
I couldn’t get past —
It lost all connection
To getting in shape,
And became a thought-maze
That I couldn’t escape,
As I sought the solution
To exit the game,
A game whose rules
Were constantly changed
By the chemical movements
That brewed in brain —
I was doing my pushups
And pushing insane.

It’s hard to explain — but in a way, I did get over it.
It’s taken other forms since, but I’ve gained some control of it.
I don’t always tell the story, not that those I tell don’t care,
But its solipsistic nature makes it pain that’s hard to share.

There are some who’ve had it harder — some have altered it with pills —
Some have trusted in the guardianship of therapeutic skill —
All who do survive it master mind by act of will —
Whatever be your method may your mantra keep it still.

For the soundless voice of god, or whatever you call god instead,
Is louder than the voices that resound inside your head —
And whatever blind perfection obsession calls me to pursue,
Will be shattered by the incompleteness that constitutes the truth.
There’s no such thing as perfect quanities of exercise, no enterprise
That lets you hit perfection, for the perfect essence never finds
Expression in the endless vines of self that twine your being —
Open Creativity Defying OCD.