From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbe a messbe a messinformal if someone is a mess, they look dirty and untidy, or are in a bad emotional state → mess
Examples from the Corpus
be a mess• I can't go out looking like this - I'm a mess.• Please sit down. Sorry everything's such a mess.• When the police called, I had just got up, and my hair looked a mess.• My basement is a complete mess and has been for years.• Nothing had worked out in S. F. Everything was a mess.• The constituency's middle ground is a mess.• The inside of the hall was a mess of rubble and charred beams.• The whole house is in a mess, but I didn't have time to clean it up.• It was a mess ... she had created a ghastly mess.• When legering from a punt you don't want to be messing about with indicators that require two hands to set.• Garbage collection and street cleaning were haphazard, public transportation was a mess. 