Obsessions, Compulsions

When you asked why I bought you a tub mat

I said I was worried about you because that’s easier to say than the whole truth:

that I lie awake every night wondering when your strong, well body will sicken

or when one of us will slip in the shower and crack her head open

and bleed to death and that I regularly envision it happening

because my mind would rather force sights on me than let me daydream.

And it’s easier to say I have to scrub three times to feel clean

and I have to check the doors just to be sure—

not that I envision grime swallowing my fingers, constricting,

digging under my skin

not that I see people coming in the night behind my closed eyelids

to hurt you, to make me face your injury, your death, and my mourning.

And all I’ve ever done is prepare myself

because I’ve guilt-tripped myself enough times to feel

the weight of every possibility on my spine

eased only by a third scrub (I can’t tell you why

only that it is,

only that I need to check one more time).

-Hazel Milla is a senior from Chapel Hill, NC, pursuing a major in Neuroscience and a minor in Creative Writing.-