Obsessive Compulses

• Emma Pool., Grade 8
• Poetry
• 2019

Always looking down, never up, just down
The cracks in the pavement are jaws in her eyes.

Backwards and forwards, over and over,
No matter how many times it doesn’t feel right.

On, off, forever flicking switches,
Too scared in darkness, yet too exposed in light.

The shaking and crying that she can’t control,
The perfect she wants a distant paradise.

And like the soap she uses again and again,
She slips out of society’s grip,
Losing herself until she’s merely wafer,
And no matter how many times I hold her close,
She will never feel whole.