Home Poetry On Obsession…

On Obsession…

by Stephanie Alfaia


In raw definition, ‘obsession’ refers to an idea or a thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes a person’s mind. Frankly, that is all you really are. A mere obsession, a mere thought that my mind cannot seem to shake off. Nothing more, nothing less. And the idea of you being a simple thought, a simple annoying, exasperating, nettlesome thought, is quite comforting… 


My mother has a theory on obsession. 10 days is all it takes. 10 days for something to become a routine, whether it’s a hobby, or an addiction, or even love. Her theory goes further to declare that the same 10 days it takes for something to become a routine, 10 days it takes for something to lose it’s routine value. If one stops such hobby or addiction during a fictitious number of 10 days, that obsession is no longer. It’s extremely soothing to believe in such a short number as 10. The even number sounds so harmless, a simple three letters, soft to the hears when spoken, as it lightly rolls of the tongue… TEN. If only it were true. Ten cannot be, it doesn’t seem substantial enough. How can a routine be no more after a mere ten days? An excruciating ten days without said obsession, said routine. Ten days that may very well feel like an eternity. Can a healthy person’s mind truly wait ten days? Survive ten days? 


This clearly isn’t about feelings. Feelings don’t cause anxiety, stress, worry, low-self esteem. No, that is obsession. Obsession not with the person, but with the thought of possibility. Obsession with the game, obsession with the thought that said person can evaporate into thin air at any moment. 


I was waiting for it, waiting for the moment it would happen. Oddly enough, I was expecting it from the first day. I knew what was happening, yet I selfishly allowed my heart to get involved for the sake of my mind’s pleasure. My mind was so flattered, it didn’t listen to my instinct. Instinct does more than warn, it screams. An obvious outcome for the way it started. No surprise there… I was well aware that said routine was becoming an addiction. Which was the addiction? Your smell? Your lips? Your touch? Your humor? Your sex? Perhaps it was all of it. Mixed with the fact that it was unexpected, that it was random, that we are opposites… 


I live for the day, you live for the night. I wonder, you sarcastically remark. I am cold, you show affection. The real question is, how true were those affections? Perhaps it was a mere routine for you as well. A new person, the same routine, the same words, the same actions. This is completely understandable, coming from a person like you, simply because it makes it easier to move on. If the routine remains the same, you remain the same, therefore there is no real work. You are simply being the same person, with a new person. Stupid me, what an easy life you live… 


Stupidity is another strong word filled with negative connotations. In definition, it refers to a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience. Therefore, I must be stupid. It isn’t the first time I have fallen for such routine. Fallen in regards to became part of said routine – no relation to feeling, yet. I have watched myself become involved with routines that I know are no good. Drinking excessively, smoking, nail biting bad habits –  all negative routines, yet they are easier to spot. Becoming involved with people who are clearly a negative shadow, on the other hand, isn’t so easy to spot. Or is it? Can I be so blind that I don’t see myself making the same mistakes? Can I live so carefully, paying attention to every move, calculating every person I meet in order to avoid a mistake, yet make the mistake inevitably? Now that folks, is the definition of stupidity. Foreseeing something negative yet allowing yourself, or further, positioning yourself for failure. 

Negative, consuming, overwhelming thoughts of nothing. That is obsession. Thinking over every moment, every word, every action,formulate alternate realities for the sake of a different outcome. Yet no change can be made. The past is unalterable. You are left alone with your obsession. You live in the past, you attach yourself to an illusional future. You mope. Holding on to nothing… moving no where… stuck… 



© 2013 Stephanie Alfaia Gomes All Rights Reserved

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