living with OCD

[Kuhn]

I use to count every stair when I walked up the steps
Only to go back down halfway till the middle of each foot sat on the edges evenly 16 times.
I would switch the foot I felt like I was leading with when I walked,
To make sure I didn't take too many steps between the concrete sidewalk squares on either foot.
When I ran I would sometimes trip and fall,
Because I felt like was using one leg more than the other and tried to even the strides mid Sprint.
But she made me slow down.
She made me forget to count.
Sometimes I had to double back and count again;
But some times, on the best days,
I didn't need to count at all.
I scrunched my toes between the shadows on the street when the sun was setting,
Because I felt like I belonged evenly in the sunlight and the darkness.
I would hum to myself
I would hum to myself
I would hum out loud to myself
Till I felt like I hit all of the cadences equally.
1...2...3...4...5...6...
I would pause and start over counting because nothing should go more than 6 seconds without a break.
But you broke me.
I went 3 years without a break.
5 years of being a father and 3 being a husband that never counted unless it was teaching my kids how to count to 10.
They didn't learn to pause after 6
Or how to hum to themselves
Hum to themselves
Hum quietly or loudly to themselves while they counted or walked down the stairs.
But I needed a break.
I needed a break from not needing breaks.
Because you broke me of my 6 second breaks to make sure life wasn't moving too fast.
But it did.
Life passed so quickly I forgot to count or scrunch my toes because I didn't like the shadows as much as the sun
And when I sang to my daughter I always had the right cadence when I sang the itsy bitsy spider.
But then she left me.
And I'm left counting the minutes in 6 second intervals till i'll sing to my daughter again.
I'm counting the steps to my car as I walked away from the place we lived together for the last time.
I sleep with my toes scrunched because I'm afraid the sun will remind me of the days I forgot to care about time.
I hum to myself hum to myself
HUM OUT LOUD TO MYSELF
The itsy bitsy spider song because I can't get it or the cadence out of my head.
I've been broken my whole life,
But for 5 years as a father and 3 years as a husband I forgot that I was broken
And it felt good.
You made me realize that I'm fixable,
I'm not a lost cause
I just can't stop thinking or counting or humming because every 6 seconds is 6 seconds I'm spending being broken for 6 more seconds at a time.
And 6 seconds from now I will have scrunched my toes and hummed to myself getting ready to do it again in another 6 seconds.
So forgive me for counting every memory every song every picture every morning every dinner and breakfast and lunch and weekend and weekday because,
I went to remember every single second I ever spent not counting them all.
Time is man-made, I control it.
I control every 6 seconds of my life
If I just keep counting down the time till I can forget to count,
and can forget to let go of the control that I have,
so I can get control of the time that I never had.
You fixed me,
For 438,000 6 second intervals...
Just to let me break again.
So I will never stop counting.
Because the last time I gave up my 6 second hold on life...
It went spiraling out of control,
And counting the number of times I saw it coming
Didn't do a damn thing to stop it.

- - - Updated - - -
@Emily @Jukon

[Soule]

There were parts of this that dragged on a little too much and seemed more like a short story than a poem. Though a mass majority of this was really well done and seemed like it was a personal written. It's pretty easy to tell which parts I'm talking about just by staring at the lines. Emotionally, this was something I really related to. A bitch coming into our lives who we loved but completely fucking destroyed our heads. I got all kinds of fucked up disabilities after my ex's so this really hit home for me bro. The wording in the shorter lines was really smooth. Really dug the ending three lines. That triplet said it all man. Dope piece. Nom'd.

[Emily]

YD, I assumed I was projecting myself into a rhyming piece and when I realised it wasn't, it was a bit of a shock
but a refreshing one to be honest with you. It was more like a short story which is fine, just different. It makes me
want to bring short stories back. I hear they used to have a section for that. Anyway.....
This pulled a few heart strings by placing me into the eye of the storm.
And I did feel that push and pull thing going on emotionally. You described the manic state of being in certain sections
quite well. And then the low is a big blow to handle. It kind of rips me apart a bit. Pulled and yanked in so many directions
in this piece, my mind was all over the place at times. Elation turned into corrupt vibes, turned into empty moments,
turned into reflections, turned to hell, turned and turned and turned and turned. Spinning out of total control.
The reminiscing of certain moments wooshes past me in a blur, as if I'm living it and I realise it's only momentary,
yet the images it gives off are vivid and alive. The darkness holds a really heavy sour stench of depression and even
anxiety makes a show by making my heart race so fast it's gonna pop outta my chest.
I like what you've been able to do here. A story that highlights the highs and lows of relationships.
A story much like the stories a lot of us have lived.
A story of heart break.
But more than that I think it shows resilience. Behind the gloom of uncertainty, lies someone who's stronger than they
think, stronger than they were, stronger than they'll know. And the only way to realise this, is through this door....the one
we never thought we'd need to pass through. Who would have thought there was light at the end of it?
But there is.
If it wasn't for that darkness, we'd never appreciate that light.
I guess we need both at the end of the day.
I noticed a typo somewhere, the only typo I noticed. The rest was free falling pain and love and memories spun into moments
of pictures that breathed life into this piece. I liked the ocd connection. I like the 6 second link. I liked the personal connections you
had going. I liked the vulnerability displayed.
Good raw, organic, breathing, bleeding, piece here YD.
Keep writing freely like this.
Before you know it, you'll be flying.
It's not easy to cut yourself like this on paper for the world to see.
It's not easy.
But you did it.
And you did it in a way that's true to you.

Challenging piece here.

Thank you.