Emotional Poem Performance Offers Amazing Insight Into the Obsessive-Compulsive Mind

In 2013, College National Poetry Slam champion Neil Hilborn performed OCD, a really raw and emotional piece that offered insight into what goes on in the mind of a person with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and a first person view of the devastating effects it can have on a relationship.

When we moved in together, She said she felt safe, like no one would ever rob us because I definitely locked the door eighteen times. I’d always watch her mouth when she talked when she talked when she talked, when she talked, when she talked. When she said she loved me, her mouth would curl up at the edges. At night, she’d lay in bed and watch me turn all the lights off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off and on and off. She’d close her eyes and imagine that days and nights were just passing in front of her. Some mornings, I’d start kissing her goodbye but she’d just leave because I was making her late for work. When I stopped at a crack in the sidewalk, she just kept walking. When she said she loved me, her mouth was a straight line. She told me I was taking up too much of her time. Last week she started sleeping at her mother’s place. She told me that she shouldn’t have let me get so attached to her, that this whole thing was a mistake, but how can it be a mistake when I don’t have to wash my hands after I touch her?