A Flashback

*This may be triggering

here

It’s 4am and I'm awake. Alone. Hungry. I have no food and I have no money to buy food. But hunger has reared it's ugly head and I am no longer in control. Like a drug addiction – I have to have it. I have to eat. My room-mate is sleeping. I sneak a peek across her side of the room. Nothing, no food there. She never has food. 

Maybe she has an eating disorder.

I leave the confines of my bedroom, wander down the hallway. I keep telling myself that I don’t need food, I don’t need to do this, but the monster inside of me is too strong, too powerful  and I'm consumed by my need. I hate myself at this moment. I know what I'm about to do. Down the hallway is a dustbin. 

At first glance there is nothing. I tentatively reach in, start moving things around. There. Halfway down is a bread packet, with four slices of bread still inside. I take them out. A little mouldy, but otherwise unharmed. Someone has thrown something wet into the dustbin and everything else is soggy. I make my way back to my bedroom, the night's haul clutched in my hands.

I eat quickly, desperately. Then I cry, because I'm still so hungry and because I don’t know what I am any more.