I sit in the darkness of my room tossing a paper ball. As I miss the trash bin again I am stricken with the sudden realization of how much trash this house hold produces. It boggles my mind that we throw everything away when we have a perfectly useful recycling bin. You know, that big container you’re supposed to dispose of the objects that can be reused and reformed from the crumpled smash state you put them in. but no, it just sits at the end of the driveway as empty as the vacant house I live in.

I get up and walk to my trash bin, stumbling in the darkness, to attempt to sort out the trash from the recycling when I hear the frightening screech of the door hinge, the God forsaken sound as she enters the house.

We meet in the hallway and I walk past her. I can tell by the nose cringing smell of her perfume that she is following. As I begin my sorting she goes on with the same comments as yesterday and the day before:

You’re not my problem

I toss a bag of pencil shaving in the trash

I wish I could leave now

An apple core goes in next

I don’t understand you.

I attempt to say something but immediately get cut off and a water bottle that was meant for the recycling then falls in the trash

When you turn eighteen, just get a suitcase and get out.

She walks away and I decide it’s much easier to dump it all in the trash.

I sit in my room and reflect, as I usually do after our nightly conversation:

When was I ever her problem?

I’ll never understand her.

I am leaving, never to return,

and I’m taking HER suitcase.

My thoughts are disrupted as her smug face appears in my doorway and her forgotten comment splats out of her mouth like the brains of a suicide jumper as he hits the ground.

I don’t trust you either.

I can’t help but to laugh as I throw a juice box in my trash because the trust she is referring to went out with last year’s trash.
There is an unexpected guest so I go to open the door. My maternal being comes running and stands next to me with a smile as fake as the pearls in her jewelry box. I wish her pretending to be happy and perfect would stop, just as I have stopped pretending that I’m not hurt to the core of my being that the smile on her face has to be faked.
As our guest leaves my maternal being turns and looks at me. I already know there is about to be a repeat so I put up my hand and simply say, I just took out the trash. I then walk to my room to continue wasting paper.