The Scarlet Rain

                                (1)

When I was a little over nine, I smelled flower in my bath.

Every night, my dreams rained, the flowers swept along.

My dreams were pieces of cut glass, odors entered

And withered away, the night hung in my mouth

Stale, unwashed, bleeding away.

Unzipped, squatting on the bathroom floor

The blood washed the night from my flesh,

Then swirled around the wet tiles like shimmering fish.

My mother and aunt supplied cloths, tied

Napkins in tight strings as blood gushed inside me,

Hammering words in my ears, insisting I should be happy

To grow up, surrender to this monthly leaking.

They called it by strange, funny names,

Tickling laughter, making it a reminder,

A lovely, shy inheritance.

I smelled flesh every time I ate fruit,

In my tongue, I tasted the stench of chopped, peeled skin.

When I was a little over nine, I walked dainty,

Fairy-like, my smiles spreading with sparkles

And songs. I bled and smelled slaughtered animals,

And rain. I saw in colors, beautiful ones,

The dark unknowing, the swelling of seeds, buds, flowers.

The year revolved around spotty clothes, fumbling,

The bumps and holes of hormonal wavering.

                                    (2)

When I was a little over nine, and bled for the first time,

I didn’t know my lips, the sweet swelling of curves.

I didn’t know how bodies floated, shivered in caress

I didn’t know how girls were slapped, blindfolded and raped.

I didn’t know the voyeurism of men.

                                      (3)

My body has weathered the cycle and calendar

Of bleeding, birthing, milking. My body is a moving train

With a pout, a cleavage, and legs that spread

In between cycles. My body stops at the edge of surrender

Resting against yours. Feel my heart breathing a love poem,

Or coax my flesh into yours. Know my blood, tears and sweat,

Or veil my face within locked bars. I bleed the scarlet rain

Of generations—surging, writhing, crackling, moaning,

Boiling like stew, melting away.

 

[Dedicated to every girl attaining womanhood, and to her rocky journey in attaining it, a journey where she is bound in chains, a journey where she discovers her absolution.]