I show up when you’re waiting// Or when you think you’re safe// I peek outside// I see the light// Then I break down the gate// You can’t run, you can’t hide// Ain’t no one living// Stronger than my crimson tide
HD: I can’t use tampons. I tried when I was younger – and that felt very weird, when I was 14, trying to get cotton up inside me when nothing had ever been there before. I cried a few times and gave up. Instead, I use pads. I’m so sick of the weight and girth and the bleached quality of the disposable pad, though. Buying them in bulk, carrying the pastel packages around... I just hate the texture of something built to throw away up against my tender bits. By the end of a menstrual week, I have a rash from my inner thighs to my ass crack. If I get the kind with wings, the crease of my thighs is just raw. There have to be better options.
I’m strong just like the ocean// Heavy waves or light// And when you pee// It’s blood you see// Unless you turn out the light// Every fourth week or so// Can’t escape me babe// You’re clot/caught up in my flow
HD: There’s are so many kinds of reusable menstrual products out there—some, like the MoonCup or DivaCup, you can insert into your vagina and they catch the blood in a silicon thimble.
E: For me, after lots of years of loving tampons for their convenience and their maturity (okay, once I masturbated with a tampon applicator) I wanted something less wasteful and something kinder to my body. One very awkward conversation with an overly zealous health food store clerk later, I had this DivaCup. Menstrual cup users must be intimately familiar with their bodies. When I use mine, it’s a process of hiking my leg up onto my bathtub, gently shoving a folded bit of stiff plastic as far into my vagina as it will go, then spending minutes running my finger along the outside of the cup, wedging it between vaginal wall and plastic, checking the seal, ensuring the weird slick bump of my cervix is not pushed backwards or to the side of the cup. Removing it is a messy process of digging furiously around inside myself, pulling blood-filled packaging from my body, trying not to spill and create a murder scene on the floor from the shockingly small amount of fluid the device collects. When I got the IUD that effectively ended my period, my gyno asked if I was at all comfortable checking the strings every few months or so. Oh, yes, I said. I have a DivaCup.
HD:I prefer to feel the blood come out of me when I cough or sneeze or I’m just standing at the bus stop and know it’s gonna land on… [pull out a reusable pad] one of these! Stain-y, yes? I take mediocre care of them. You’re supposed to soak them in cold salt water before you put them in the washer—it’s amazing, the bloodstain removal techniques you learn when you have a regular uterus purging.
E:These are my super-absorbent underwear! The ones I have were created by a woman after pregnancy who got tired of peeing a little every time anything happened, and they happen to be great for periods too. I also take awful care of mine and put them in the dryer and probably they don’t work anymore, but god I love them. So handy for blood and pee and come and they’re the very most comfortable.
Some people want to call mama// Some people want to mope and groan// Whichever way you feel about me// This whole world’s your home// If you’re a badass to the bone// Knowledge makes you less alone
HD:Consider the silly moments, when you’re going through the motions of dealing with all this blood coming out of you, and then you realize how strange it would seem to someone unfamiliar with the ritual of menstruation. I found a story on the internet where a trans man went to the men’s bathroom to change his pad. [E and HD act this out] He went into one of the stalls, settled in—then another guy came in to use a stall. He tried to open his pad wrapper in the midst of that holy bathroom silence, just slowly ripping it open—then the other guy asked:
E: “Do you have chips?”
HD: The only thing he could think to say was, “You can’t have any.”
HD: I was chatting with a friend who has never had a period and got describe what period-blood actually looks like. It’s chunks of uterine lining and it’s brown, red, black sometimes, pale pink… It’s a visceral experience. I’ve been getting various shades of menstruation for over half my life. You see parts of you falling out into the toilet and spreading, cloudy and uncoiling. It can be beautiful. It’s all I can do sometimes to keep myself from sending pictures to people when the gore is thick and I feel proud of what my body built and then destroyed.
So take power in your body// Any way it is// Your beauty’s in your story// Commander of the ship// My darlings// Red runs down your sides// Whichever way the wind blows// May you be filled with pride.