Content note: Strong language

I’m cooking dinner for you. I’ve cooked dinner every night this week. I started this morning, before I left the house, and poured love and effort and care into it. I am proud of it. And then you look at me from your chair and ask “where’s the tin foil?” I stare back at you blankly. “I don’t know.” I finally say. I do. It’s in the drawer. The drawer where it’s only ever been fucking kept. You stare back at me, not moving from the spot where you stand. “I can’t find it.” You tell me. You haven’t looked. I refuse to look, ignoring your question. A few minutes pass and you ask me again. Two more minutes. Two more repeats. Finally I snap. I search, and within thirty seconds I find it. In the drawer where it’s only ever been fucking kept. I put it on the side and continue cooking dinner. I bite my tongue. 

“But you know better than me.” 

I’m walking around the grocery store, pushing the trolley. Today, for once, I asked you to be in charge of the list. We walk past the dairy aisle and you turn to me, and ask me if we need milk. I tell you to check the list. It says we need milk. I tell you to put the milk in the trolley. We walk past the meat aisle. It says meatballs. You ask if you should pick up the 12 or the 20 as they’re the same price and the same weight. I tell you I don’t know. You ask me again. I want to scream. 

“I don’t know what it’s for..” 

Every night before bed, I wash up all the plates and utensils from making and eating dinner. I wipe down the sides and I leave the kitchen spotless before I go to bed. I can breathe. I go out to work. I am physically tired, I am mentally shattered. I enter through the kitchen. There are crumbs and sauce on the countertops. Things have been left out. There is food on the side. There are stacks of plates in the sink. I silently fix it all before I can even take my shoes off. I want to scream. I bite my tongue. 

“Men aren’t raised to see mess the same way women do.”

Sometimes I feel as though I’m screaming silently into an empty void. No one can hear me, and even if they could, I can’t even explain what it is that makes me feel so crazy.

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