My room is not even that messy I’m just really behind on laundry

Always do the disclaimer. The forewarning.
The my-room-really-is-a-state I don’t know what to tell you
The I’m-honestly-so-much-better-than-I-was-but-old-habits-die-hard talk
The I-promise-this-is-not-a-cry-for-help conversation
How bad, realistically, can things be
Live in a tip. Live in landfill
Fast fashion is killing the Earth kind of landfill
Demonstrating Pretty Little Thing desecrating areas of natural beauty kind of landfill.

Explain that I hate doing laundry.
Prefer my room when you cannot see the floor can’t
Stand to see the endings of things can’t
Stand to hang things up and put them away and do it all again
Hate repetition
Hate repetition
Hate things that do not end
Hate stasis. Have a desperate, unfulfilled, constant longing for closure.
Fuck this. There’s always more laundry.

Have tidied a bit,
Have hoovered.
Need to get rid of things that have overstayed their welcome like
Dead bugs. And fluff. And dust. Hair that fell out last Wednesday.
Amongst other things.

Put laundry in bag then
Put bag under desk
Explain somethings are better left undealt with
Hate facing up to things. Hate confrontation.
No use airing out dirty laundry et cetera et cetera
Would rather just have it present. Would rather coexist.
Not hurting anyone, really, is it.
Dirty laundry in bin bag under desk in bedroom.
Friendly parasite. Something like that.

Glad you came, though.

Glad you saw my laundry.

Anna Johns

Anna is a third-year French and Arabic student currently on her year abroad in Amman, Jordan. You can find her on Instagram at @annacjohns

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