Machine Man The Movie (March 6th 2011)

It’s just under two weeks until I go back to Paris, France, for my next adventure with my double bass. I'm excited about getting my first gig in Paris with my singer-songwriter friend, Richard Lewis and In Extenso (En Groupe) in the Bastille area of Paris. Also I've just had my poem, 'Obsessive Compulsive Disorder' published on The Machine Man Forum. Here it is:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

My home is my writing. If I lost my words, who am I?

For years I squirrelled away other peoples’ poems,

as if their words could imbue me with a sense of substance

and wrote down so much truth in my diary,

it became illegible.

Since suffering more trauma

I’ve gone beyond considering things in detail,

into the minutiae of morphemes;

so in-depth that I will never re-emerge as

the woman I used to be.

I can’t believe in my own fissionable reality

unless I write down what’s happened and

even then I can’t believe it

and am tortured by unwanted graphic flash-forwards:

my flat burning down,

being brutally raped,

Jan dying in a car crash,

coming into contact with

contaminated blood.

Nowhere feels safe.

Relentlessly checking and re-checking

numbers, magazine pages, text messages,

household appliances - everything -

causes my nerves to jangle 24-7:

a gradual wearing away of brain function and

twisting and twirling children who repeat and repeat

aggravate

my stifled anger.

I scribble down reassurances to myself on bus tickets

and still have a niggle if I don’t write words down

in exactly the right order /

say things in exactly the right way,

with the correct amount of information,

for terror that others won’t get what I’m trying to say /

that I did leave a candle burning or I really was attacked.

I edge towards becoming a recluse,

but choose daily to fight for release from this crippling prison.

© Gemma Boyd (November 2010)

Please check out the excellent video (below) which highlights and explores the issues and challenges faced by those suffering from OCD. Thankfully I've almost financially survived another winter as a musician, and have hopefully got lots more exciting projects on the horizon.