I NEED TO STOP LETTING PEOPLE INTO MY ROOM. MAY 24TH, 2024

I need to stop letting people in my room.

    On my desk stands a big, bulky, warm lamp that I carried on a one and a half-hour commute from my friend's house to mine. I’ve carried it from Manhattan to Queens, Massachusetts, and back to Queens. Firstly, I need to express my gratitude to this lamp because any desk I’ll be momentarily using will feel familiar as long as the lamp is anchored to it. I use the word familiar because it doesn’t seem as stagnant as words like comfortable or usual, both of which describe quite the opposite of my current life. Different types of ribbon are tied to it. It’s the most convenient way to store them without getting tangled, and it’s important to me to have easy access to them in the mornings. I like to tie ribbons around my neck to separate my head from the rest of my body. (I should note that I’ve never been able to see myself as a unit). The lamp has a pink lace dress on it, which adds a rose-colored tint to my room. I like my room to emulate my insides. It gets beautifully filled with everything I’ve loved, and effortlessly lets my pain be. I have a lamp, curtains, posters, letters, and plenty more dust-accumulating trinkets to assure familiarity and to emulate my core. 

𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

    I told a past partner that I didn’t want to make my dorm a “sex room." My reason for this was that there’s another person I’m no longer very fond of who’s “forever stained in every bed I make.” So naturally, we rushed to his dorm down the hall instead. I’m not sure why I thought it was smart to continue the mission after having said that.

    To tell the complete truth, my refusal to get under the covers was out of laziness; the thought of having sex-covered sheets grossed me out a little, and I had no intention of doing laundry the next morning. However, having that menace of a man from my senior year of high school stained on my bed still holds true. Most of the time, I think about what I say after I say it to really know what I mean. Maybe I trust my subconscious too much, but it has honestly never proved me wrong. Listening to it, though, is another thing; I still walked myself to his dorm that night, and I still walked myself back to mine, despite not wanting to lay in that damn clean bed alone.

    There isn’t much I regret in life; I make an active effort not to, but this is something I admittedly wish I hadn’t put myself through. Because it followed me to my room. Whatever ‘it’ is, all I know is that it didn’t feel good. My bed, my lamp, my curtains, my posters, my letters, my trinkets—they were all stained. I try to remind myself that my head and my body are, in fact, a unit. As are the rooms I’ve lived in and have yet to live in. One being my outside, the other being my insides. We’re all connected and one with each other. The ribbons on my neck and the number of rooms I’ve had don’t change that. I’m not immune to the stains, even if I’ve left my own physical space. I was so sure they wouldn’t follow me, even though I knew that the first boy I’ve ever let inside me was still on my bed. The boy who was too comfortable saying my virginity was “unattainable” is stained in my room forever. He lingers, from my childhood bed in Queens to my freshman dorm in Massachusetts. 

    I guess I didn’t have enough time to think about what I said about my “non-sex room” because I was already set on having sex that night. Maybe I should just listen to my subconscious more, think before I speak. Or maybe I shouldn’t regret what I did. Either way, the stains I live in are surrounded by love. Either way, they’re the pain that gets to be. These things, that 'it', the stains, will never stop feeling familiar. I use that word because it doesn't feel as stagnant as words like comfortable or usual, both of which describe quite the opposite of what those things should be.