Obsession And Will
Inspired by Deb Caletti.
Obsession and will meets secretly At the witch’s hour At noon, they pretend To be strangers Conspiring to attach themselves With a deathly grip To their objects of desire Restless ghosts Roaming and wanting Powerless over their own Impossible compulsions Will and obsession A powerful combination Sitting next to each other Without obsession Will is a quiet persistence Together it burns With unquenchable fire
This poem captures the strange, electric tension between will and obsession. I love how it shows them as conspirators—secretly meeting, pretending to be strangers—because that’s exactly how desire often feels inside us: hidden, compulsive, sometimes shameful, yet impossible to ignore. The imagery of “restless ghosts roaming and wanting” nails that sense of being possessed by our own drives, powerless to resist them, while the final lines remind us how potent the combination of will and obsession can be: not just persistence, but a fire that can’t be put out.
It makes me think about the ways we carry our compulsions—creative, destructive, or otherwise—and how awareness can be both terrifying and freeing.
Beautifully written, thought provoking, something I had never really considered. 🙏