I feel animal. My whole body runs hot, with a fever. I am bent over, crouched. I am feral. I could scratch at any moment. I shit constantly. Blood runs between my legs. I am sweating. I feel everything, swelling. I want a cave to crawl in. To die in.

A patch of muddied red clings to the bright yellow cloth. Its died cotton expanse proven
durable through the years. Threads coil from green trim, an accidental tassel that continues to
unwind despite sharp tugging. The cloth molds nicely to my body, telling of consistent wear, yet
the double-stitch lining suggests its continued usefulness.

My period and I had spent 8-years apart, ever since my first IUD. In truth, I hadn’t thought about it much. And I didn’t know then but in less than a week I would be reunited with both my period and a forgotten feeling.

I don’t get my period.

I’m not sick. I’m not pregnant. I’m not taking birth control. Its stoppage was simply brought on by my gender.

I am a man. A man who used to get periods before I started hormone replacement therapy.

I stared at the bead of blood. A perfect red pearl on my almost-shoulder.

“I’ll get something for that,” said the nurse. “Here, put some pressure on it.” She pressed a cotton ball against my skin, and I held it there with my pointer finger.

I finally flossed my teeth. It was the first time in ten days. I moved about my bathroom with excited anticipation of normal days to come, suddenly aware of the overflowing garbage pail and grime in the cracks of the backsplash. Blood pooled delicately between the enamel of my teeth, reminding me of yet another way I had failed.

I learned about menstruation from sea monkeys when I was eight or nine. Since then, I haven’t given my body much thought. Maybe that time in Sicily, when I flew off my bike and skinned my knee and elbow, leaving a scar. Or perhaps when my legs sprouted hair and everyone in the sixth grade shaved before my mom let me. But now that we’re trying to have a baby, it’s all I can think about.

Chapter 1: February 1972

The brown stain in my white, cotton underwear looks like a crime scene. But it has to be a mistake, a trick of the fluorescent lighting in the bathroom. I wash my hands raw and clunk back out into the dining hall, my rented ski boots slamming against the cement floor.

You’re startled when a girl from your homeroom hugs you from behind. She wears more mature perfume than you’re allowed to buy, and you worry her makeup might rub off on the back of your black shirt. Her scent is sweet and gag-inducing in the narrow, yellow school hallway. As you both continue walking in this odd double-step, she pulls you slightly backwards toward the nurse’s office.

“One-ninety over one-ten.” The nurse
deflates the cuff with a huff and a puff,
taking measure of the pressure in my
being laid bare once again on a
white-sheeted table like an inedible spread.

I will miss
unexpected bulbous solitary pimples—
crocuses blossoming on my nose announcing the advent
of my upcoming spring

oh its just one of those things when the diva cupjust isntcomfy feeling leaks just get it out girl just go with the flow we drip for the earth baby flowers constant creation she in bloody underwear,

I'm a transwoman. This means I was mid-sized as male upon being born and raised as a boy, socialized as male, with all the horror that entails.

I was raised by my mother and three sisters. All my cousins were girls on the maternal side. I grew up sitting down in the bathroom, putting the seat down, taking baths sometimes, and wondering when my breasts would grow.

the cramps, the headaches, the
moodiness, the tiredness,
the need for chocolate and sweets,
being horny for long peroids

Two years have passed since my last menstrual period, and I'm done with bleeding forever.

This ought to fill me with joy. Though my period occurred at regular intervals for forty-two years, its arrival always seemed to catch me by surprise. Often, a stream of blood would suddenly tumble into my underpants while I was strolling through a department store, entertaining a new lover, or working at a desk on an important project. I'd feel that telltale rush, and the accompanying fear that I would leave a trail of blood marking my passage, like Gretel with her bread crumbs. Want to know where to find me? Follow the droplets.

Are wombs a kind of echo chamber for picking up vibrations from the universe at large? Is menstrual blood the language in which women speak to each other, even across time or space? Alas, this writer does not have enough information to risk giving general answers to these questions. I can only offer my own experience as evidence.

My vagina had a fracture but I did not have any health insurance. 
I stapled the pedals. 
Refusing to nourish the mother inside. The little girl screamed. nudenovelties. White knuckled nothing. 
My uterus wanted to cry but I swallowed amphetamine and stuck a thick flesh pencil inside.

“Please call me back. Something terrible has happened.”

That was the message I left on my mom’s pager when I got home from school. While I waited for her to call back, I sat on the toilet. I placed two maxi pads in my underwear, slightly overlapping, just like I’d seen her do. Thick, with two strips of adhesive going down the length of the pad, they went nearly from my belly button to my lower back. I was eleven.

My story must begin with the fact that I was raised Catholic. Or that my mother spent the first ten years of her life growing up in the shadow of a convent. Or that her older sister, her closest sister (there were two others, plus two brothers) volunteered at said convent.  Just for fun.

I left my mother holding neck scarves
I had selected from the display
neatly arranged by patterns
separated by thin dividers-