The Mess You Make

Room is messy, why bother cleaning it up if nobody is going to see it, dust coats everything light and dark and imprints the room with a sense of apathy, the ceiling fan will spin for the next 4 months, latching on to dust that impacts the edge of each blade. There are clothes everywhere, mostly clean, piles of old pants that are faded and worn, argyle socks never used, old coats and jackets retired until the winter months, a pile of your favourite jeans and t-shirts haphazardly clustered on top of your new pillow you bought months ago but haven't used. The sheets and mattress pad lie, stained from moisture, on the floor, you sleep on the mattress because what's the difference between damp cloth or damp fiber, same with the pillows, one is covered, one isn't, but they're stained all the same. The blanket started shedding long ago so you tossed it in your closet and used the space as a large trash can. Empty beer and liquor bottles huddle in a corner away from the light and away from prying eyes, some are pooled in a garbage bag that clinks when the laundry on top of it is shifted, there's more laundry, again, this time on top of the nightstand, it's covered in dust too, and layered with empty pill bottles that spill onto the floor and halfway across the room. Your desk is covered in old movie tickets and gum wrappers and more beer bottles, old, unused blank CDs, books, and empty e-cigs interspersed with the real thing. There are important documents tucked between the subwoofer that's never used and the PC tower, like your passport, which also hasn't been used in over a year, and the ticket to the concert you didn't go to because you weren't in the mood that Sunday night, would rather lie in bed and listen to the music until you fell asleep at 7pm. On bookshelves lie used paper plates, crumbs stuck to the white sheen of their surface, pop-tart wrappers interspersed like some Jenga tower. Underneath the bed are torn up, empty envelopes and packages that once held media or books or posters or drugs, it's all been shoved accidentally underneath, where it may never escape from. The closets are impenetrable, things on the floor stacked so high that you can't step inside. The door doesn't open all the way because a moving box from years ago sits in its path, full of things you'll never use nor sell. Somehow you've managed to not lose much in here, but you know it's a matter of time, there's only so much you can throw on the floor until things start vanishing, although at least you know nothing will ever be vacuumed up.

The ceiling fan continues to rotate lazily above, casting a stale breeze throughout the air.