Bump In the Night

I’m old enough to know that any monsters under my bed,

pale in comparison to the one that’s in my head

a creature that taunts me nightly, with what ifs, mights and coulds,

tells me: it’ll be okay though, if you just touch wood

so I tap the bed frame once, and then I tap again

only now touching wood doesn’t work, unless it’s in multiples of ten

and I suppose I can’t be certain, that wood will always be found

so I keep a piece in my pocket, carry it around

But the voice changes its tactic, says now that the real monster is me

and I’m late for work because I’m taking quizzes: “Do you have psychopathic tendencies?”

Won’t go into my kitchen, can’t be left around any knives

Scratch my skin hoping it’ll distract me, and break all out into hives

I tell all my friends who ask, I loved making a murderer too!

Only I didn’t really watch it, too afraid what I might do

That somehow I’d see myself staring back from within the TV screen

so I lock myself into my room, simply refuse to leave

That soothes the monster almost, but just when I think its gone

It finds a new obsession, what if my reality is wrong?

And I’m actually not here, not really, not at all

That maybe I’m dreaming, or I’m crazy, or I had a nasty fall

Maybe I’m lying in a hospital bed, wires threading through me, I’m in coma somewhere

My family cry, she was so young! Their heads all bowed in prayer

Or maybe, I’m in the matrix, a simulation, nothing’s real

So I start pinching myself, once, then twice, to make sure I can feel

But then I cannot trust myself, so ask my boyfriend to pinch me instead

Pinch me, please just pinch me, show me this is all just in my head

and he says, Look, this isn’t right, I think you might be quite unwell

and I agree with him I say, probably, I am poorly, yes, but it’s just so hard to tell

what’s real and what’s a thought, with these monsters in my head all the time

‘That’s where I can help’, says my therapist, we can make my mind, mine

She says you are struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

Impossible I say, I’m so messy, untidy - a hoarder!

But it turns out this creatures can morph, one person to the next

and my monster camouflaged itself amidst all of my mess

As well as in laughter, that old chestnut I’m sure you’ve heard

saying: ‘I’m a bit OCD’, when you like your socks in pairs, does nothing but hurt

so much so I didn’t realise, that all of the above had a name

lost years of my life to a monster that can actually be slain

at least now I realise my obsessions are not me

they’re just symptoms of living with that hilarious joke, only, I’m not just a bit OCD.