Bleed Boo. Period.
This morning I had to go back and listen to one of my favorite poets Dominique Christina recite The Period Poem, since my period came and I was feeling like WHY ME?!. Let me just say, if you menstruate LISTEN to this. It always lifts me up during this time of the month. Listen Below…
Here are the lines that stood out and resonated with me the most:
The sudden grief all young girls feel after the matriculation from childhood, and the induction into a reality that they don’t have to negotiate, you and your disdain for what a woman’s body can do.
I never realized just how much shame women can feel about their periods or even myself. At one point I remember not wanting guys to know I was on my period, or feeling weird at check-out when I had to buy pads or tampons and the cashier was a guy. Society has always wanted women to feel ashamed about this process that is apart of who we are even through the ways that they market menstrual products. That’s why I’m so excited for women now coming into the feminine care space and starting businesses for women by women. Dominique tells us here we don’t have to deal with anyone who doesn’t honor what our bodies can do although we all have felt this grief.
The feminist politic part, is that women know how to let things go, how to let a dying thing leave the body, how to become new, how to regenerate, how to wax and wane, not unlike the moon and tides…
This was probably one of my FAVORITE lines. When I think about God I think about women because of the unimaginable be things that we can do. And to think about this idea of releasing and regenerating is such a great way to think about our periods because that is exactly what we are doing when we bleed. Weakness has always been associated with women because they say we are emotional beings. But there is power in one’s ability to cry, it’s one of the best forms of release. And our periods help us to remain in touch with this ability to release. When she said this I was like YESSSSSS!
Women have vaginas that can speak to each other and by this I mean, when we’re with our friends, our sisters, our mothers, our menstrual cycles will actually sync the fuck up. My own cervix is mad influential, everybody I love knows how to bleed with me.
I always thought this was one of the most fun and fascinating things about women’s periods. Because there have been so many times when I would be with my girlfriends and one of us is like dang my period just came yesterday and then the other is like dang mine came on today and we can laugh and complain about it together. Sometimes is the best feeling that someone else at least understands you. Just think about this too; anytime you’re out in public and your period comes and you shoot that text your homegirl like, “ Hey you got a pad?” if they don’t have it not them best believe they’re going to find somebody close by that does. We bleed together!
But when your mother carried you, the ocean in her belly is what made you buoyant, made you possible. You had it under your tongue when you burst through her skin, wet and panting from the heat of her body, the body whose machinery you now mock on social media, that body, wrapped you in everything that was miraculous about, and then sung you lullabies laced in platelets, without which you wouldn’t have no Twitter account at all motherfucker.
THIS. THIS. THIS. All I have to say is women should be REVERED because we make life possible. Any man who doesn’t honor, respect, and understand this about you doesn’t deserve your time, space, or energy. PERIOD.
It interrupts our favorite white skirts, and shows up at dinner parties unannounced, blood will do that, period. It will come when you are not prepared for it; blood does that, period. Blood is the biggest siren, and we understand that blood misbehaves, it does not wait for a hand signal, or a welcome sign above the door. And when you deal in blood over and over again like we do, when it keeps returning to you, well, that makes you a warrior.
WHEW! When sis hit me with this one I was a mess, okay. I was reminded that I am a warrior even when it doesn’t seem or feel like it and YOU ARE TOO. Remember it. Claim it. Drive your stake into the ground. Mark your territory, be lioness and roar as loud as you can.
Etymologically, bless means to make bleed. See, now it’s a lesson in linguistics. In other words, blood speaks, that’s the message, stay with me. See, your daughters will teach you what all men must one day come to know, that women, made of moonlight magic and macabre, will make you know the blood. We’re going to get it all over the sheets and car seats, we’re going to do that. We’re going to introduce you to our insides, period and if you are as unprepared as we sometimes are, it will get all over you and leave a forever stain.
I often talk about how I feel that sometimes as women we forget the power and influence that we have in the world and the people closest to us. It may be our friends, a spouse, our children. We have a way of leaving that forever stain both literally and figuratively. What kind of stain will you leave?
Should any fool mishandle that wild geography of your body, how it rides a red running current like any good wolf or witch, well then just bleed, boo. Get that blood a biblical name, something of stone and mortar. Name it after Eve’s first rebellion in that garden, name it after the last little girl to have her genitals mutilated in Kinshasa, that was this morning. Give it as many syllables as there are unreported rape cases. Name the blood something holy, something mighty, something unlanguageable, something in hieroglyphs, something that sounds like the end of the world. Name it for the war between your legs, and for the women who will not be nameless here. Just bleed anyhow, spill your impossible scripture all over the good furniture. Bleed, and bleed, and bleed on everything he loves, period.
PERIOD!!!!!! This was the one for me. This closing reminded me that I needed to bleed with PRIDE for the magnificence and light that I will bring to this world.
Yesterday I started my period. I was like man, on the first day of the new month TOO! For so many women that I know and share the experience of menstruating with it is never the happiest time of the month for us. However, for me when I am menstruating I try to use that time to take care of myself the best way I can. I always become deeply introspective during my period. I listen to my body when she feels tired or feels pain. I cry if the cramps hurt me too badly. I eat chocolate because every sweet morsel makes me feel better about the world. I do this because I deserve it, PERIOD.
I hope this piece inspired you because it ALWAYS inspires me. Much love to Dominique for putting this out into the world for her baby girl and all the other nameless dummies on Twitter.