Crumble
A period poem that refuses to apologize for bleeding
I was thirteen when the world split open.
Not with thunder. Not with warning.
Just a rust-colored stain on cotton underwear,
and the quiet panic of a girl who didn't know
her body had been keeping secrets from her.
I told my father.
He looked at the floor like it might swallow him whole.
"Men don't like hearing about that."
As if my blood was a conversation he hadn't consented to.
As if my becoming was an inconvenience to his comfort.
/
So let's talk about what men do like to hear.
Let's talk about the way they dissect a woman's body
over beers, over boardrooms, over breakfast.
"She's got legs for days." "I like 'em soft." "Too much muscle, not enough curve."
Their preferences, served raw, seasoned with entitlement.
No grimace. No deflection. No "talk to your mom."
But mention the moon-pull in my veins,
the monthly tide my uterus negotiates,
and suddenly I've breached etiquette.
Suddenly my biology is a breach of contract.
/
Ain't it funny how the blood from the womb
makes all these men crumble?
(We whisper it in bathrooms. We chant it in marches.
We write it in red ink they can't wash away.)
But your body is a delicacy,
enough to make these men stumble.
(They want the fruit. They fear the root.)
/
They can narrate their bodies like sports commentary.
The game, the stats, the glory, the groin.
They can fart in elevators, scratch without shame,
name every part of themselves in locker-room Latin.
But when I say "cramps," I'm dramatic.
When I say "clots," I'm grotesque.
When I say "this hurts," I'm a weather system
they didn't forecast and refuse to shelter from.
Here's the forecast, darling:
I am not your mild climate.
I am the storm that names itself.
I have bled through linoleum, through silence,
through boys who called it "dirty" while begging for touch.
I have bled through job interviews, through breakups,
through the quiet terror of being too much and not enough
in the same breath.
My blood is not a metaphor.
It is a fact.
And facts, unlike opinions,
do not require your permission to exist.
/
Ain't it funny how the blood from the womb
makes all these men crumble?
(Let them. Let the ground shift. Let the foundation crack.)
But your body is a delicacy,
enough to make these men stumble.
(Let them trip over what they can't control.
Let them learn the weight of what they pretend to desire.)
/
They called it hysteria.
They called it weakness.
They called it a flaw in the design.
They drilled. They drugged. They cut.
They called it care.
They exiled us to huts, to silence, to shame,
as if bleeding were a moral failure
and not the very rhythm that carried humanity forward.
And still.
Still.
We bled.
We birthed.
We buried.
We began again.
So no.
I will not fold my truth into a smaller shape
to fit the pocket of your discomfort.
I will not translate my cycle into a language
that makes you feel safe.
My period is not a debate.
It is a drum.
And I am learning its beat.
/
Ain't it funny how the blood from the womb
makes all these men crumble?
(Not funny. Necessary.)
But your body is a delicacy,
enough to make these men stumble.
(Not a delicacy. A force.)
/
Let them crumble.
Let them stumble.
Let them finally hear what we've been saying
in blood, in breath, in bone:
I am not wrong for existing.
I am not dirty for renewing.
I am not yours to manage, to mute, to mend.
My blood is not a secret.
It is a signature.
And I am done apologizing
for the ink.
/
So move.
Or don't.
Either way, I bleed.
Either way, I rise.
Either way—
I am a woman.
And I don't owe you shit.
About the Creator
Edward Smith
I can write on ANYTHING & EVERYTHING from fictional stories,Health,Relationship etc. Need my service, email [email protected] to YOUTUBE Channels https://tinyurl.com/3xy9a7w3 and my Relationship https://tinyurl.com/28kpen3k
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