Under the Ribs

ZAYRA YVES

Fire and ash fall from the sky like my eyelashes fall from my eyes. I am four years old living in a motel on Market Street in San Francisco and my parents are drug addicted. My eyelashes are my friends and I line them up on a bent knee cap, give them each a name and talk to them like dolls because I do not have dolls or toys or more than one change of clothes, not that it matters since I have to stay in the motel all day. At night I sleep in the corner under the window where we keep a carton of milk so it stays cold. The window doesn’t shut completely, so when the fog rolls in the crack I crawl under the bed to stay warm. Sometimes in the morning my parents forget to check under the bed and I wake up to find no one in the room, not knowing where they have gone or when they will return. 

The room smells like piss because I mess myself in the corner all the time—I am afraid to use the toilet in the hallway. Every time I piss in the corner or vomit in the sink of our room my father punishes me by making me clean it or by rubbing my face in it. One time I had to stand naked on an upside down crate until I learned my lesson but I peed on myself that time too. The bathroom in the hall frightens me because it doesn’t have a lock on the door, so a big nasty man might come in and watch me use the toilet while he plays with his cock. I have seen lots of men do that. Sometimes there is something else besides pee that comes out. I only say “cock” because that is what my father calls it. I feel funny in my stomach when I say that word but I don’t tell him that because he scares me. I don’t tell him I am afraid of the dark bathroom down the hall because he might beat me with a hanger or send me out on the street to beg again or work like my mother, so I sit in the corner and pull out one of my eyelashes. 

I do other things in the corner too like count my bones or see how far under my ribs I can fit my fingers, only I do not know they are ribs, so I ask my father the name for that part of my body. I show him I can hide ten fingers, two small fists, under my skin but that makes him really angry, so he slaps me, calling me a “conniving little bitch” but I think my ribs and fists look good like that. I like to play with my body. I think I could take it apart without anyone noticing then drop it in small pieces out the window into the shaft like the heroin I drop down there this morning when the light is still blue. 

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