Content Warning: This entry contains childhood trauma and emotional experiences. Reader discretion is advised.
I can still taste that moment.
The sweet-bitter powder, the quick burst of comfort I wasn’t allowed to have.
I was just doing what I was told—gathering every trash bag in the house by myself. Chores like always. One more quiet way to stay invisible and out of trouble. And while I worked, I thought: Maybe… maybe I can take a scoop. Just one. No one will notice.
So I tried to be slick. I acted casual, like nothing was unusual, like taking out a heavy black trash bag meant nothing more than dropping it in the bin. I walked outside in the front, where the trash cans were, and threw the big black trash bag away. I slipped the scoop of Tang into my mouth and thought I was safe. Let the powder hit my tongue.
Just one scoop. Just one tiny moment of comfort.
Sweet bitterness.
Two seconds of something that tasted like relief.
Then—
The door creaked.
Quiet foot steps.
A shadow behind me.
I jumped so hard it felt like my bones shook.
I gulp that shit down my throat and hope my tongue didn't turn orange.
Thomas was right behind me.
Closer than I ever realized.
“What are you doing?”
I stiffened. “Nothing. Taking out the trash.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth.
“What are you eating?”
Firm. Sharp. No escape.
I froze.
My brain scrambled.
I gulped.
The truth would get me in trouble.
A lie would get me in trouble.
There was no version where I won.
He told me to stick out my tongue and I did.
My heart was racing but I guess he didn't see any orange on my tongue. He eyed the trash because it was open then he eyed me.
He asked again what I was doing. I said nothing and he didn't believe me. He kept pressing me for an answer.
He wanted an answer.
So out of pure panic—pure fear—
I said the dumbest thing:
“I… ate out of the trashcan.”
The look he gave me…
Disgust.
Confusion.
Lost for words.
He told me to go inside and sit at my desk—
the place where punishment lived.
Writing sentences.
Workbooks.
Or silence, which sometimes hurts the worst or get lost in my head.
He told Margaret what he saw.
What I said.
And the disgust doubled.
I wanted to take it back - justify myself.
I wanted to explain.
I wanted to say, I wasn’t being gross, I was just desperate.
But in that house, explanations didn’t save you.
Honesty didn’t save you.
Silence didn’t save you.
Nothing saved you.
Either way, I would lose.
So I sat there at that desk— a child with Tang still dissolving on her tongue, what little I could still taste— wishing that adults who claimed to raise me could see the difference between misbehavior and a little girl trying to find the smallest scrap of comfort in a home where comfort didn’t exist.
