Archives :: Stephen Danos

Post-it-Note For My OCD Friend

Appeared in the Fall 2005 issue.

The hallway smells to me
like dip as well, and I'm not
a professional baseball player.

When younger, thirteen or so,
my brother used to leave
plastic cups filled with wadded up

Kleenex and tobacco juices
near the video-game console
in the basement. To think

what you would have done
if you, oblivious to contents, knocked
that cesspool of saliva all
over your hand. Don't respond,

buddy. I can only imagine
what you go through
on your way to work,

all those doorknobs
and germ molecules you say
'itch your skin', setting up housing

projects in between exposed bones.

View bio information and additional poems published in Half Drunk Muse on the author's main archive page.