Incomplete
May. 24th, 2019 04:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
toujours_nigelWrote and made an audio-clip of this for a friend's installation about menstruation.
I haven’t bled in six months.
On my last visit home, a gynaecologist told me it’s one of the signs of a complete woman. I sat in front of him, incomplete; my mother, who hasn’t menstruated in years, incomplete; his wife, the reason we were consulting him, incomplete and bringing us tea, biscuits, urging us to eat while he explained the reproductive system with far more condescension than the topic warranted.
"Girls with PCOS should marry early because having kids is a problem," he told me, and then asked my age.
29, for the record. 29 and the last six months have been the first in sixteen years when I haven’t spent a quarter of every month in pain and afraid. Afraid of staining my clothes, afraid of starting to bleed unprepared, afraid of the rich red stink of it, afraid of the rash on my thighs like a scourge. Afraid of fainting from the pain that rolls me back into a fetal curl, craving chocolate, tea, soup, salted and warm liquids to replenish me while I shed the chance for that month’s child.
Every month’s child. Another sign of being incomplete, my distaste for motherhood, my joy in not bleeding, the freedom of wearing white and climbing trees without being afraid.
I haven’t bled in six months.
On my last visit home, a gynaecologist told me it’s one of the signs of a complete woman. I sat in front of him, incomplete; my mother, who hasn’t menstruated in years, incomplete; his wife, the reason we were consulting him, incomplete and bringing us tea, biscuits, urging us to eat while he explained the reproductive system with far more condescension than the topic warranted.
"Girls with PCOS should marry early because having kids is a problem," he told me, and then asked my age.
29, for the record. 29 and the last six months have been the first in sixteen years when I haven’t spent a quarter of every month in pain and afraid. Afraid of staining my clothes, afraid of starting to bleed unprepared, afraid of the rich red stink of it, afraid of the rash on my thighs like a scourge. Afraid of fainting from the pain that rolls me back into a fetal curl, craving chocolate, tea, soup, salted and warm liquids to replenish me while I shed the chance for that month’s child.
Every month’s child. Another sign of being incomplete, my distaste for motherhood, my joy in not bleeding, the freedom of wearing white and climbing trees without being afraid.
