Bleed

No. 7

“Blood is a siren. When we see it we think it is alerting us to a wound, a malady… something is wrong if we see blood. But menses is a part of the machinery of my body."
-Dominique Christina 

     Today has turned into a bed day, a day in which it will be rare for me to do anything but sit up or lie down. The crimson monster begins to awaken deep in my unsuspecting uterus. After over a year of damming the tide, the flood waters make themselves known, forcing themselves out with great irregularity and spontaneity. I curl up in the fetal position, hoping that such an infantile twisting of my body will somehow revert my uterus back to a time before the flood began. Really, though, it’s somehow better at relieving the pain than any other position. I lie like a fetus while my body bleeds from lack of one. Is this the circle of life? I feel misled by my favorite childhood song.
 
     I suppose one of the takeaways from periods is that every month my uterus identifies something within it that is unnecessary, and no matter the pain and effort it works and struggles until said thing is removed. More like violently expelled in a slow oozing of mucus-y blood. Maybe I should be more like my uterus.
 
   There are plenty of things to bleed out, but instead of just doing it and integrating such habits into the natural cycle of self, I fight to keep them in. I fight to hold in the eggs that could have been fertilized, that could have been implanted, that could have formed zygotes, and fetuses, and babies.
 
    And like so many do, I cling to and prioritize the potential these rancid eggs had rather than letting them go. Instead of focusing on the things I have given birth to and nurturing them to flourish and grow, I turn my gaze inward and bemoan the pain of lost potential.
 
    But it’s time to cry it out in bed, and watch the blood circle the toilet bowl. The pain, though crippling and thought-erasing, will pass in a few days’ time. Things will return to a calm eventually.
 
   It’s time to stop mourning that which could have but has never been, and direct my energy instead to cultivating living things that need to grow.