Featured Poet - Ian Cogntiō

DAMN SPOT WASHER

By Ian Cogntiō 

My father shamed me

the second time I got pinworms 

Told me I was ‘dirty’, yet

it wasn’t so hard to get pin worms

in those days

with dog's crapping everywhere

No one cleaning up after them

I became a compulsive handwasher

after that, at the tender age of 8

washing away the shame,

not wanting to invite more ridicule—

Dad’s resentment at having

to take that medication, yet again

prophylactically, because of his filthy kid, Me

This habit remained with me

throughout my childhood

and through most of my adult years

Then, just I’d started to relax

about hygiene, and germs

and contagions, COVID hit. Well…

Now, everyone’s a handwasher, sanitizer, 

flesh-to-flesh, and common-surface avoider

And I don’t feel quite so neurotic

as some of the rest of them appear

Though still an old hand

at keeping the hands pristine clean

germ-free, and uncontagious

It’s second nature to me

I could show them all a thing or two

about hand-to-orifice contamination

and preventative measures

without the excess of emotion

or the apocalyptic panic

Maybe, even start a new religion

I’ve washed away more amorphous sin

than could ever accumulate… in the real

END

ABOUT THE POEM - Damn Spot Washer is a record of my experience with OCD accentuated by an emotionally abusive relationship with my father and the resurrection of “old habits” during the early stages of the COVID 19 pandemic.

UNSAID

By Ian Cognitō

How many “not fights”

have we been having lately?

where one of us

(actually you… sorry, but it’s true)

decides that we’re not talking

or that it can’t be discussed

that accountability at both ends

is not a desired

End?

You hold on

to your bad impression of me

like something cherished

like an imaginary friend

you’re not quite ready

to part with

A security blanket

you can wrap around yourself

to keep me …  out

and you in

The things we don’t say

can wound just as much

as the things we do…

I think you know this

I know I do

END

ABOUT THE POEM - Unsaid about the dysfunctions within a long-standing relationship.

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