Lonely Thoughts

An Ode to Bleach

I switch out the sunflowers in my window every 5-7 days.

I accept nothing less than perfection: 

straight spines,  beaming blossoms, fresh fragrance, perky petals.

There are no weak bitches allowed in my kingdom.

When I say kingdom, I really mean bedroom, but to be quite honest it doesn't really look lived in.

The fairy light beacons are always lit.

The fishtank moat is 100% crocodile free.

The succulent soldiers are sharper and stiffer than needles.

My subjects glow.

There are no dusty bitches allowed in my kingdom, either.

I suppose I inherited such a rigid ruling from my mother. After all, all my friends agree that our house looks like a magazine.

But just like my mother, I know that the first step when shit goes down is to clean up the mess.

She learned it, too: when my grandfather's cigarette smoke filled her childhood home, she threw open a window and summoned woodland helpers.

When the bills piled up high on our spotless kitchen table, my mother swept them into an alphabetically organized drawer and filled our castle with jazz and the smell of peanut butter cup cookies. 

When she and my aunt screamed at each other for two hours, and I saw my mother cry for the first time in my life, she did not give up. She switched out her tears for bleach and the bathroom's reeked of it for days.

When she found a mouse lying dead at the top of the basement stairs, she screamed, but then she waged war on the basement's shadowy corners. 

The mice didn't stand a chance.

Neither did the rest of us.

When my anxiety left me broken on my bedroom floor, I did not run for help. 

Instead, I organized my sock drawer. 

When my sister's crummy boyfriend dumped her for another girl, she went shopping, and I washed every single article of clothing I owned.

When the stress of finals crashed over me like a 20 ft tidal wave, I went through every single nook and cranny in my room for something to throw out, to leave behind, to let go of.

And cleaning works. 

Cleaning gives you control again. It's like, congratulations, you've completed the first step in fixing whatever you've ruined. 

Congratulations, you've procrastinated whatever you're scared of a little longer. 

But there are flaws too.

I tell my mother my deepest insecurities.

I tell her that nobody is in love with me.

I tell her that I have no future, 

I tell her that I should probably get a diagnosis for that anxiety thing.

I watch the panic flicker in her eyes as she smiles at me. Watch her hands tremble as she offers me a rag and a bottle of bleach.

"Let's get to work," she says. "You'll feel better."

There are no weak bitches allowed in her kingdom either.