Step 9 Day 1: Rage Snacking and Bittersweet Symphony: The Justice My Mouth Delivered When My Voice Couldn’t

Sometimes justice shows up in the crunch of what can’t be said out loud.

There’s a specific kind of hunger that isn’t about food. It shows up with salt, with crunch, with volume. Popcorn, chips, crackers...anything that shatters between your teeth like something finally breaking. I used to think it was mindless eating. But no, it was a ritual. A verdict. A quiet courtroom, I built in my mouth because the real one never came.

I would rage-snack while imagining their faces, the people who hurt me, humiliated me, and made me feel small on purpose. I didn’t fantasize about revenge. I fantasized about exposure. That moment when the mask slips. When the room goes quiet. When the truth walks in wearing black and doesn’t flinch.

I think about the final scene in Cruel Intentions more than I probably should. Sarah Michelle Gellar’s character sits alone in a church pew, mascara streaked, her secrets unraveling on a projector for everyone to see. And Bittersweet Symphony plays like a requiem. Not for her—for the lie.

That’s the feeling.

But I didn’t just imagine justice for me. I imagined it for everyone they hurt. Because people like that don’t stop at one person, they collect damage like souvenirs. And the part that still makes me smile a little? If anything ever did catch up to them, they wouldn’t even know where it came from.

Not because I’d sabotage them. That’s not who I am. But because they’ve wronged so many people, they wouldn’t even know where to start. And that’s the kind of justice I can live with, not revenge, but reality finally showing up with a clipboard. And I no longer offer my silence as their cover story.

A Slice of Humble Pie: Sometimes justice comes in the form of a snack you don’t owe anyone an explanation for.

Reflection: What stories do you still hold in your body because no one listened when you tried to speak them? What would justice feel like if it didn’t require an audience?

Affirmation: I don’t need an audience to deliver justice. I am allowed to believe myself.

This is your invitation to stop apologizing for the ways you survived. Justice doesn’t always need a stage or a gavel. Sometimes it just needs you.