Menses

I:
That first blood
Stains the cloth
A mark of a woman

Back home, they don’t even have a word for it

Menstruation
Is not the word they use

வீட்டில் இல்லை

They use a phrase that translates to,
“Not at home”

As if the woman must be hidden away
As if this gift of reproduction,

Is a sin, to be kept in the dark
A sign of an impure soul

During this time,
Of debilitating pain

As her insides are threatening to crush
Themselves to rubble,

She is asked to remain
Invisible

Often, this is the result,
As the pain renders her
unable

To speak
To breathe
To be

Half a child
Lost in a sea of thick, viscous blood
The remnants coat her undergarments
Her pants
Sheets

She is unraveling
From the inside out

Her mind unable to think of anything
But an incessant constriction
On her ribs

As if she has got a boa there
Threatening to
Make her devoid of life

II:

Miles across, a child wails
As if the cry were a command

Thousands follow
A haunting series of wails
Echoing through a desolate land

Ghosts,
The spirits,
Of lives lost

To a rifle
Fired on demand

Command without reason

It is too late to save him
For he too,
Is covered in rubble now

Last memory,

A rusted knife
Piercing flesh

A thing, left to rot
Blood seeping from the wound

Just beneath the abdomen
A debilitating pain

Mother and child,
Meet at last,
In a sea of red.

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