the garbage bin in my room

The garbage bin in my room is a bad idea. It’s a bad idea for my room that barely stretches across a few square meters, a bad idea that unapologetically takes up a part of the only space I have to my name. To society, my garbage bin is also a bad idea. 

Someone has to put that garbage in a dumpster. 

Someone has to put that dumpster in a truck. 

Someone has to put that truck in a landfill. 

Bad ideas go in the bin, as well as good ideas that have gone bad. They go bad because everything is constantly rotting and entropy dictates that the garbage bin will always fill and that I will always have to empty it. 

Unless I’m dead, in which case they will put me in a garbage bin. 

There is a girl in my class that has the same hair and eyes I have, and initially, I hated her for that. I have nothing but contempt for my muddy hair and lifeless eyes. But she is neither lifeless or muddy. She eats homemade egg sandwiches on Tuesdays and looks people in the eye when she talks to them. 

She never thinks about her or anyone else’s garbage bin.

In my room, there is also an electric kettle that is occasionally a good idea. The water that it boils can make tea, noodles, coffee, stew, boiled shrimp, steamed peas, or my favorite, hot water. The thermostat in it is broken, and it's dangerous to leave it on. Despite that, it often whines and hisses, alone and ignored, as I lead it on and forget about it. 

Sorry, I had my headphones in. 

Sorry, I must’ve misheard that. 

Sorry, my mind was somewhere else. 

Inevitably, it reveals its true form as a bad idea, as it froths at the mouth and spills over my only table.

The girl who is also in my literature club has the same backpack and books that I have, and I should hate that because I have nothing but shame for my backpack and the books I carry in it. But it’s clear that she is not ashamed of anything, the way she reads those books. 

It’s clear that she is not afraid of anything, the way she looks at me. 

In the silence often birthed by our club’s only two regulars, there is nothing else to do but read and look. 

And she, to my great annoyance, doesn’t do very much reading.