confessions of a 20-year-old hoarder
the glass was just out of frame.
One day they’ll find my body under a pile of things.
LOCAL GIRL DROWNS IN OWN EXCESS.
The photo will be unflattering. The caption will be polite.
The window faces south, but the blinds are broken. They get stuck when lifted, so they stay down. Light pushes through the slats in narrow lines. The room is always dim, even at noon. Dust floats visibly when the sun hits it just right. The walls used to be white. Now they’re yellow at the edges, grey where hands have touched. There’s a single monstera in the corner. Three leaves left. One of them is turning brown.
The radiator clicks in the afternoons. One boot sits on top of it, scuffed at the toe. In the sink: two bras, a fork, a hairbrush. On the floor: a receipt printer, four canvas tote bags, a bottle of nail polish that leaked and dried into the carpet. A foldable tripod leans behind the door. One leg is loose. I used it once for a flatlay, then never again.
The duvet is halfway off the bed. The cover is inside-out. There’s a stain on the sheet I never scrubbed out completely. I think it’s coffee. Could be wine. The laundry basket is full. So is the chair.
They’ll call it tragic. Collapsed under the weight of her many selves. The girls will whisper: that could have been me. I’ll be posthumously relatable. The dream.
They’ll find stacks of books on the windowsill and beside the bed. Some opened once, some never. A copy of The Second Sex still wrapped in plastic. A dog-eared YA novel I tell people I outgrew. A Joan Didion paperback with water damage. I told a girl I’d read Eve Babitz. I hadn’t. But I liked the idea of being the kind of person who had. Wales isn’t LA. But it’s easy to lie if you lie quietly.
The top drawer is filled with dead batteries from an old vibrator. A broken keyring. Loose change in currencies I can’t name. Lipsticks I haven’t worn in years. Hair ties stretched out. Crumbs. A tin of Vaseline with lint stuck to the lid. Tweezers I never use. A tangled phone charger. A roll of white tack. Stickers I never stuck. Polaroids turned face-down.
None of it is sentimental. But I keep everything.
There’s a cinema ticket pressed between two receipts. A flyer from a club I left after twenty minutes. A napkin with a phone number I never texted. A chipped mug from my first year of uni. A lighter that doesn’t work. A comb with three teeth missing. These aren’t keepsakes. They’re objects that didn’t get thrown away. That’s all.
They’ll ask: why did she keep all this? They always ask questions they don’t want answered.
And then there are the clothes. Four denim jackets. Three leopard-print coats. Two faux-fur. One trench. None of them warm. I scroll Vinted like a rosary. Sometimes I buy things. Sometimes I just look. The parcels come in waves. Some wrapped in pink tissue paper. Others in Tesco bags. Last month I got a David Bowie T-shirt in a vape box.
There’s a baker boy hat I wore once. Earrings that turned my skin green. A scarf that still smells like someone else. I have four pairs of the same jeans. One of them swallowed my student ID. I kissed a boy in those jeans. Bled in them. I don’t even like how they fit.
The pile on the bed started with a jumper. Then jeans. A coat I didn’t hang up. A plastic bag from the post office. Now it covers most of the mattress. I sleep curled around it. A second body. There’s a yellow sock in the centre. Two eyeliner pens, uncapped. A birthday card with half a message written, the rest left blank. One bra strap caught on a button. A receipt folded into quarters. The duvet cover is stained. I haven’t tried to scrub it out.
There are three glasses on the bedside table. One cloudy with green tea. One with lipstick around the rim. One with a crack near the base. The lamp leans slightly. The bulb hums if it’s left on too long. The mirror is smudged. The floorboards near the desk are gritty. A roll of film in an envelope. I haven’t developed it.
The blinds filter light into narrow, uneven strips across the bed. Nothing ever feels properly lit. Not bright. Not dark. Just stuck.
There’s a mug on the desk with a spoon still in it. A crusted bottle of foundation. A tangle of necklaces I never wear. Two tote bags hang from the door handle. One contains paracetamol, receipts, and an empty gum packet with the foil peeled back. A half-burnt incense stick in a ceramic holder. A matchbook from a restaurant I never tagged.
Under the bed: a box labelled “IMPORTANT.” Inside: old Christmas cards. A broken phone case. A record I can’t play. The bin is just a plastic bag hooked to the side of a drawer. It’s half full. I haven’t taken it out yet.
There’s a pile of unopened post on the floor. Bank letters. Leaflets. An envelope I opened and left open. A package arrived three days ago. I haven’t opened that either.
There’s dust around the skirting boards. Crumbs on the rug. A faint smell of damp near the wardrobe— the maintenance man said to expect a mould problem. The window doesn’t lock properly. The radiator ticks loudly when it cools.
The books are stacked by the wall. Some with pages folded. Some unread. One with a bookmark three pages in. The top one has a quote underlined in pencil. I don’t remember reading it.
The flat is quiet in the afternoons. The fridge hums. The tap drips slowly. I haven’t tightened it. The guy upstairs paces at odd hours. Back and forth. Back and forth. Sometimes I match his rhythm without meaning to.
The floor hasn’t been hoovered in weeks. There’s grit in the seams of the rug. The candle on the bedside table is burned all the way down, wax pooled around the base, wick curled into itself. I haven’t thrown it out. Next to it: a lighter that clicks but doesn’t light. A pen with no lid. A receipt folded and refolded until the ink wore off.
On the windowsill, three lip balms, all half-used. A dried-out mascara. Dust gathered around a ceramic dish I meant to use for earrings. There are none inside. Just bobby pins, loose, bent, hair still clinging.
The bookshelf (can you even call it that? It’s more of a ledge) is too full. Titles turned inward. Magazines stacked horizontally. Between the pages: receipts, bookmarks, a poem I copied out by hand and never finished reading. Underlined sentences I don’t remember writing. Folded corners. Paperclips. Dried petals. A strand of hair.
The bathroom bin is overflowing. A wrapper balanced on top. The toothpaste cap is missing. The mirror is flecked with water stains. Foundation. A thumbprint. The towel on the radiator is still damp from yesterday’s shower. It smells faintly of mildew. The laundry bag is behind the door. It’s unzipped but nothing’s been added in days.
On the desk: an unopened parcel, addressed to me in handwriting I don’t recognise. A silk scarf still in plastic. An empty glass. A plate with the crust of something left uneaten. The candle here is unlit. I meant to light it before I started writing. I didn’t.
There’s a baby tee draped over the chair. A necklace in a knot. A ring that left a green band on my finger. I haven’t worn it since, but I keep it in sight. The coffee mug is stained inside. I’ve stopped rinsing it out.
The phone charger is tangled beneath a stack of notebooks. One has a single line written on the first page. Another is full of lists—books to read, things to fix, things to buy. A line circled twice: clean when I feel better.
Not a confession. Just a list.
The fridge is mostly empty. A lemon gone soft. A single egg. Half a tub of something I forgot to date. In the freezer: a tub of ice cream with the foil still on. I don’t remember buying it.
By the sink: a wine glass I used for water. A fork resting inside it. A spoon on the windowsill. A chipped bowl with dried cereal stuck to the rim. I meant to soak it. I didn’t.
There are thirty-four tabs open on my laptop. A draft with no title. A sentence half-finished. The blinking cursor. A saved folder of screenshots. A list of captions I haven’t posted. The paragraph on the screen reads: this is not healing. this is organisation.
Crisis in syntax.
The receipt is still in the drawer. I don’t remember what I ordered. The ink is almost gone. I keep it anyway. I keep everything. Not for remembering. Just to prove I was here.
There’s a ring light folded behind the wardrobe. The box it came in is under the bed. I meant to sell it. I didn’t.
I cleared the desk before I took the photo.
The glass was just out of frame.
'crisis in syntax' i love this