Menstruation Haiku

Bleeding vagina–
another month not pregnant.
Time to celebrate.

-Vi
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Menstruation

By Anonymous

As I write this, I am currently going through that time of the month. There is a dull pain in my abdomen, lower back and thighs, but I am able to think, articulate, reason and live, perfectly well!

When I first hit puberty, there was no fanfare or ceremony about sighting my first blood. I was shown how to manage my period hygenically by my mother and aunts, but that is about all. Life simply went on for me – school, friends, university, marriage and work. Once a month I am ensured extremely tender care from my husband who will rub my back and help me cope with the pain of an oncoming period. It represents for us, as a couple, our life-producing union.

I recoil in horror at the social anguish faced by my sisters in other parts of the world as a result of their menstruation. How the very blood that nutures life within a womb has become a mark of shame, as a reason to oppress, marginilize and subjugate is ridiculous.

Menstruation is a time for me bask in my womanhood – my feminine power of producing life. It is not a shameful or dirty thing – but a beautiful affirmation of the potential and a symbol of the cycle of life.

Dare anyone say to me that I cannot be who I am because I menstruate.