The Morning I Became a Woman

By Roxanne, Brooklyn, NY

Women gathered around my bed first time she came to me
I was young, eleven
Did not quite understand the diversity of emotions before me:
Tenderness, happiness…sympathy
“You’re a woman now,” my grandmother said
I was just embarrassed at the sudden attention

It felt like….nothing
Nothing that I imagined
But that statement cloaked me
Cloaked me, heavy
Like an unwanted armor on an apprehensive soldier
I was later told the main strategy for safety:
“You can’t talk to boys now, they will ruin yu” an aunt said
I took that to heart…

I was not until the second month I felt pain, felt something
That I knew that it was for real
And as the months and years passed
I came to understand the faces that looked down on me
The morning I became a woman
Copyright © RNLH 2010
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Holiday

By Geneva Kachman (from her 2000 collection “The Traveling Menstrual Show”

“That song is the biggest joke. I never take a vacation.” — Madonna, Truth or Dare, 1991

Original words and music by Lisa Stevens and Curtis Hudson

hol-i-day!
men-stru-ate!
hol-i-day!
men-stru-ate!

if we had New Menses Eve,
wore some bright red party hats
as well as maxipads,
it would be, it would be so nice.

St. Val’s Day, we’re gonna see
a heart shot with Cupid’s arrow is
really just a uterus
with fallopian tubes.

now it’s Menstrual Monday,
a week before Mother’s Day –
Menstrumobiles are hung with care,
and Menstrububbles fill the air.

Thanksgiving Day, we’ll spill
cranberry sauce onto white
tablecloths, to symbolize
our menstrutivity*

it would be, it would be so nice!

red sacks inside us
like we’re female Santa Clauses.
stick those tampons in.

it’s time to menstruate.

let cramps subside
and we will find
a way to bleed together
and make things better.

we need a holiday.
if we took a hol-i-day,
took some time to men-stru-ate
just a few days in each month,
it would be, it would be so nice.

hol-i-day!
men-stru-a-tion!
bleed to-geth-er in
ev-e-ry na-tion.

*menstrutivity (men’stroo tiv’eti) 1. Spontaneous outpouring of creative and/or collaborative energy. 2. To give and/or receive more than was bargained for. 3. An embarrassment of riches.

___________________

On the Rag Railroad

By Geneva Kachman

“She’ll be comin’ roun’ the mountain when she…”

no ticket, station
or even timetable
just a penny on the track
that starts to vibrate
every 20 days or so
and you know it’s on the way

the countryside you’ll see
will be all mountainous
sunset or sunrise, blood red
you won’t remember
what high noon or midnight
looked like

on the rag railroad
all open windows
and bloody noses
from the high altitudes
got on board when I was 14
and I won’t get off ’til I’m 50

the destination is India
and the Cobra yoga pose
’til the small of the back
becomes the center of
the universe
although sometimes stranded

in a blizzard

of Advil or Midol
snowbound with cramps
in a narrow mountain pass
in the middle of nowhere
for hours on end

never knowing who your
sister passengers are going to be:
Chinese instructor
in a velveteen blazer
confiding before class
she’d just gotten hers

your classmate Leisel
who always had hickeys
(and never bothered to hide them)
asking to borrow
a tampon
near the bank machine

on the rag railroad
no baggage except
a silk-wrapped tarot deck
(to break the ice) is allowed
got on board when I was 14 (15, 17, 10)
and I won’t get off ’til I’m 50 (27, 43, 52)

* * *

Dylan says she breaks
just like a little girl
what does he know
on this mountainside
lion’s open jaws
are hot, wet, red and healthy
and she pounces
just like the animal
she is