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“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-