Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

A poem

Photo by Hao Zhang on Unsplash

I’ve gotten very good
at imagining my own death.
In situations where this exercise
would be most inadvisable,
I sit and try to shake these thoughts
from my Etch-a-Sketch brain.

There’s nothing quite like
listening to the jet turbine whir
right outside your humming window seat,
while thinking over and over
about the sound it would probably make
sheering itself violently mid-flight
from the wing.

I’ve dwelled on the image
of my throat failing to swell
with the scream caught in my chest,
as the airplane collides
with the side of a mountain
or the stone surface of the sea,
sending so much fire and debris
flying into my frozen face

and I’ve wondered if it would even register,
the pain,
or if I’d have time
to grasp for my wife’s hand beside me,
before my vision was filled
with the white exploding fury
of a universe asserting its power
over the…