OCD

i.
Hold that pose, NonSequitur. Feel your muscles shake, weaken
then
Strengthen

Tighten those callow lungs
Clean, crisp oxygen is a luxury, anyway

Good -remember those words, now
Coax them along from annals and folds

"I -I remember, I remember."

Very good. Reprieve granted.

The world's been reordered, the mantra spoken.

"Staysssss...."

ii.
"What -you too good for us?"

A mafioso's voice, a thin chrome surface worked and redoubled to a vaguely human appearance.

My reflection, undefined and leering. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I am."

A second voice, or perhaps third -a petulant, wheedling tone. The blender joins the toaster. "But...you pass us thrice an hour."

"I don't have to. My choice, remember? Rebecca said -"

"'Rebecca said!'" The tone snaps, bridles. "Who you gonna listen to -her, or us?" Sinks, sharpens. "Touch! It's torturing you. You need that symmetry -that power in your fingertips."

I can't argue. "Fine, fine..." I run my hands thinly over the cold appliances, feel them purr and soften as familiarity strikes me, again and again. Toaster, counter, blender, counter, toaster.

Toaster, counter, blender, counter, toaster.

iii.
Slowly, now.

The jamb is not the enemy.

A soft series of hollow rushes, 'till it stills, silences. Let it down -not too abruptly. Mediate those fingers. You don't want to abuse it. Wound its pride, its feelings, and the whole ritual is meaningless.

The door's feelings.

What are you, crazy?

"You should talk."

But it's calling you. It needs your touch, door-whisperer.

Door-whisperer? If I weren't crazy, that would strike me as funny, awkward. But -"Don't say it. He."

iv.
One foot in front of the other.

Don't look down.

Don't play its games.

Adhere.

Symmetries.

Symmetries.