It starts at the lock. Did I turn it twice.
I go back and check and the lock is right,
but the certainty dissolves before I reach the stairs,
and I am back at the door running fingers over pairs
of deadbolt teeth. Again. Again.
The number has to land on ten.
The counting does not stop because I tell it to,
the counting has its own arithmetic to do,
it runs beneath the ordinary surface of my day,
and if I miss a number then I start again and pay.
The light switch gets four flicks before the room goes dark,
four on, four off, a ceremony, not a lark,
the faucet handle has to click against the tile,
the towel folds in thirds and I stand there for a while
making sure the edges meet, making sure the crease
falls where it fell the night before, a temporary peace
that lasts until the next compulsion kicks the fence
and I am counting steps between the bathroom and the bed.
I know the math is meaningless. I know the lock was turned.
I know the stove is off because I watched the pilot burned
to nothing when I cut the gas, but knowing is a coin
I spend and spend and still the debt keeps growing at the join
of every evening, every exit, every small goodbye.
The counting whispers: one more time. Just one more time. Or die.
Not die for real, but something close — the feeling that the world
will slip its gears if I do not keep the ritual furled
around my waking life like bandages on burns.
The counting does not care what I have learned. The counting turns.