i can hear them snoring in the guest room right now and my heart is just thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird... i thought i was ready for this visit but i was so wrong. my parents arrived at 6pm and the second i saw their old sedan pull into the driveway i felt this cold wave of pure terror because i realized i forgot to do it. i forgot to hide the evidence... i was literally shoving a stack of spicy paperbacks and my toys and everything else into a plastic bin and kicking it as far under the bed as i could while they were ringing the doorbell. i am thirty years old. thirty. and i am shaking because what if my mom decides to sweep or some shit... i am thirty and hiding my life in a dusty corner like i'm a criminal. i work in a library... i spend all day organizing collections and helping people find research papers on ephemeral historical artifacts or niche genealogical records but here i am acting like a teenager hiding a vape... except it isnt a vape its my entire personality that they would never ever understand. they think im their perfect quiet daughter who only reads the classics and goes to church but if they looked under the bed... if they saw those covers with the half naked men and the velvet bags they would literally disown me. every single thing i like is a secret. every single thing i do for myself has to be buried... dinner was excruciating... my dad kept talking about how proud he is that i stayed so traditional and didnt get caught up in the world and i just kept nodding and eating my salad while thinking about the fact that there is a literal vibrator six feet away from where he was sitting... the juxtaposition is just too much. its a lot. it is A LOT. my mom commented on how i have a lot of dust under my bed frame and she almost reached down to check if i had a vacuum and i swear my soul left my body... i just shouted NO i will do it later and she looked at me like i had two heads... like i was some kind of monster for not wanting her to touch my floor. why am i like this? i have a masters degree and im currently finishing my second thesis but the second they walk through the door i shrink. i just shrink until i disappear... i spent three hours today scrubbing the kitchen just so they wouldnt find anything "inappropriate" but i missed the one thing that matters. the one thing... i feel like a fugitive in my own apartment. i feel like i'm playing a role in a play that never ends and i'm the lead actress but i forgot my lines because the real me is buried under a pile of smutty romance novels and lace... it makes me feel crazy. every time they visit i feel like i’m losing my mind. i remember when i was sixteen and they found a magazine i bought and the way they looked at me... that look is etched into my brain forever. it never goes away. never... it was like i was something they found on the bottom of their shoe. so now i live this double life where i'm the respectable academic librarian by day and this person they would hate by night. i keep thinking about what would happen if i just pulled the bin out. if i just said here it is... this is what i like. this is who i am. but i cant. i just cant do it. the cost is too high... the silence is better than the screaming. it always has been. tomorrow we have to go to brunch and then they will leave but until then i'm just sitting here in the dark on top of my secrets... i can feel the books pressing up through the mattress even though i know thats impossible. it feels like they are burning a hole through the floor. every time i hear a floorboard creak in the hallway i think it's my mom coming back to check for dust or to see if i'm actually sleeping... i'm thirty years old and i'm hiding my life in a tub... thirty years old and i'm still a ghost in my own home. i just want them to leave but i also want them to love me and i dont think those two things can happen at the same time... i really dont. it’s 2am and i’m staring at the ceiling wondering if i’ll ever be a real adult or if i’ll be hiding things under my bed until i’m eighty. it’s exhausting. it’s so exhausting to be two people at once and i’m so tired of pretending that i don’t exist outside of the boxes they put me in. i just want to sleep but i can’t stop thinking about that bin. every single second, i'm thinking about it. every second.