I can feel my mother staring down at me, she will not be ignored. "Miranda, get out of bed! It's 3 in the after noon and you haven't gotten up once today." She bellows in my face while pulling at my cocoon of blankets.
"Leave me alone woman!" I yell back with out opening my eyes. I sling my arm over my eyes and yawn. My whole body feels as if it's asleep. I can't feel my toes or finger tips but I don't care. She keeps tugging at my blankets, unrolling me like a grape leaf. Soon I'm just going to fall apart, and then she'll be sorry. "Please go away, just leave me alone!" I whimper. beg.
Her meaty fist comes down on my already black and blue ribs, "Wake up!"
I grunt once, roll up into the fetal position and fall back into my death like slumber.
After a while she gives up. She knows I've been stealing her meds again, and that I will be zonked out for hours. So she plops herself down in front of the computer and taps away why I drift in my endless black pool. We sit like this all day, until I come out of my medicated stupor and take her place in front of the humming monitor. It's 12 pm, 9 hours later, when I am finally able to open my eyes and stretch. My mom is right where I left her, tap tap tapping away at the keys of our desk top. I kick off my blankets and teeter my way to the bath room, wearing the same t shirt I've had on for the last 3 weeks.
I examine my face in the mirror. Dark circles puff out from under my blood shot eyes. I peel the shirt off of my flesh to count my ribs. They're all there, poking out slightly from under my snow white skin. I step naked onto the scale and frown at what I see. "How can I still be at one forty seven?" I mumble out loud. Once again I turn to the mirror and look over my body. I cup my small breasts in my hands and suck in my stomach. My ribs stick out even further, the bruises on my flesh stretch to cover them up. I can feel tears welling up in my eyes. "Fatty, fatty, fatty!" I whisper to the broad shouldered girl in the mirror. I ball up my fist and punch myself in the ribs as hard as I can. Hot tears spring from my eyes but I don't stop. I bring my knuckles down across my ribs until fresh bruises bloom and my knuckles are as red as roses. Maybe if I punch hard enough I can mold my form to resemble the petite, pretty girls at school. I'm willing to try.
When I can't bring myself to fire off another round against my ribs I move to my thighs. All the while biting down on the inside of my mouth to keep myself from screaming the words that are booming in my head, "Fatty! Cow! Dyke! Thunder thighs! No bodies gonna love you if you're a fat ass!"
Big sloppy tears roll down my face and splash against the moldy tile floor. When no one is looking I allow myself to cry. My thighs turn red and jiggle under my attack. Finally I'm so exhausted all I can do is slump against the counter and stare at myself in the mirror while my body burns and twitches.
Urgent knocking at the door calls me away from my tormented reflection. "Miranda," my brother whines, "I need to take a dump, can you stop shaving your mu stash?"
I quickly yank my t shirt back on and rip open the door. "Fuck you!" I sneer, and push him out of my way.
He slips into the bath room and locks the door before I can get any more violent with him. the bath room is our sanctuary. It's the only room in the house with a lock on it. Sometimes when I can't escape into sleep I go in there and just lay in the empty tub with my blanket. I've never had my own room before, so that tiny, rusted tub is the closest thing I have to privacy. Unfortunately I have to share it and the rest of my grandmothers 2 bed room trailer with five other people.
I slip into the kitchen and open the fridge. Dinner has long been made and devoured. I know it's against the rules to eat outside of family meals but nothing was saved for me except the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. My grandmother holds no sympathy for slackers. "You get to the table when dinner is served or you don't eat," she warns me every night.
I grab an apple from some where deep inside our fridge and scurry back to bed with it like a roach. Peeking over my mothers shoulder, I quickly scan the messages she's sending to some foreign man in India while I bite into my first meal of the day. She's so desperate for adult conversation that she doesn't mind if said adult is living over seas and types in broken English about his religion and erect penis. I eat my apple in silence, waiting for her to relinquish the computer for the night.
Finally she turns to face me, the computer screen sitting idle behind her. "You need to stop taking my Trazodone," she says in a matter of fact way.
At this point I don't even care if she knows or not. I know she isn't stupid, and her meds are the only thing she does pay attention to in real life. I shrug my shoulders at her, "I don't know what you're talking about."
I can feel her eyes glaring into me. "Miranda, I need those. That's why the doctors gave them to me. So please, stop taking them."
"Well what about all the medication you needed but the doctors wouldn't give you?" I asked, going right for her jugular.
"What about all the times you sent me in to see the shrink with stories of how depressed I was, when really you just needed a fix?" My voice shook a little at the end despite the acid I felt in my throat.
"Huh mommy? Well now I need some too, so you can shut the fuck up." there, now the acid was out, spit all across her face.
Her dimpled hands are white against the arms of her chair. I meet her with just as much hate and resentment. I feel as if I could spit on her, but instead I go for the kill. "Maybe if you have a few less to take you can get a fucking job and get us out of your mothers house! Huh mommy? did that thought ever occur to you? That maybe we're sick of living here, cramped up in the tin can?! We're waiting for you to take care of us and you're just sitting there!"
I've swallowed every tear and now I am boiling with anger. I dare her to disagree, to lash back at me, to raise her hand and hit me. Fight! Wake up!
She doesn't. "You stupid, fat, bitch" she spits at me, "Move so I can go to bed."
I step aside and allow her to fall into the bed I just got out of. I sit in her spot in front of the screen and prop my cold feet up on the tower. It's humming warmth comforts me a little. I look over my shoulder at her big form laying in bed, curled up in the fetal position I know so well. I look back at the screen and open a new page. everything is blurry for a moment until I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. Even if she's not looking, I refuse to cry in front of my mother. I refuse to cry in front of any one. Crying is for infants, and obviously I could not afford to be anything but an adult right now.
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