Longlist Saturdays: Compulsion: A Field Guide by McLord Selasi

COMPULSION: A FIELD GUIDE

1. The Counting

There are 47 ceiling tiles

in the waiting room.

I have counted them

seventeen times

while the receptionist

pretends not to notice

my lips moving.

If I stop at 46,

something terrible

will happen.

If I reach 48,

something worse.

This is how I keep

the world spinning:

one number at a time,

one breath, one

blinking cursor

waiting for a sentence

that will never be

finished enough.

2. The Checking

The stove is off.

The stove is off.

The stove is off.

I have photographed it

with my phone.

I have videoed the knobs

in their correct positions.

Still, three blocks away,

I turn the car around.

My brain is a bad neighbor

who borrows tools

and never returns them,

who leaves notes

about the volume

of my living.

I check the lock.

I check the lock.

I check the lock.

Each turn of the key

is a prayer

I don't believe in,

a spell against

the chaos I know

is waiting for me

to slip up.

3. The Intrusive Thought

On the pedestrian bridge

over the motorway,

I imagine jumping.

Not because I want to—

because the thought

arrives fully formed,

a package I didn't order,

signed for by someone

who looks like me

but isn't.

I step back from the edge.

I step back again.

I step back until

I am pressed against

a worn invisible wall,

watching trotros

and battered taxis

swerve below,

taking people places

I will never go

because I am too busy

standing still,

waiting for the thought

to pass like harmattan dust.

4. The Confession

I tell my therapist:

I think I'm broken.

She says: You're not broken.

You're just trying to solve

a problem that can't be solved

with the wrong tools.

I want to ask her

what the right tools are,

but I'm afraid the answer

will be another thing

to worry about.

Instead, I count

her books (127),

her degrees (3),

the minutes until

I can leave and check

the stove again.

5. The Small Mercy

Tonight, for three hours,

I forgot to be afraid.

I was cooking dinner,

the onions sizzling,

my hands busy with

something I could touch.

The counting stopped.

The checking stopped.

The thoughts stayed

in their corner,

quiet as mice.

When I remembered

myself—when the fear

came back like a dog

who knows it's time

to be fed—I didn't

cry. I just turned

the burner down

and kept stirring.

This is the victory:

not the absence

of the thing,

but the continuing

in spite of it.

McLord Selasi is a Ghanaian writer, poet, public health researcher, and performing artist. His work has appeared in Panorama, Apricot Press, The Shallow Tales Review, Shoegaze Literary, Trampoline, Rough Diamond, Isele Magazine, Subliminal Surgery, Eunoia Review, Poetry Journal, and Graveside Press, among others. He currently lives in a town where both the weather and WiFi are consistently disappointing; though it leaves ample mental space for observation. He believes the best poetry happens when attention drifts elsewhere.