I don’t remember how old I was when I got it.
But I remember that I knew what it was,
From mama and my older cousin.
“You’ll find blood in your underwear one day.
Don’t worry or get startled.
It’s something that happens to all girls.
It lets them know that they’re grown up.
When it happens to you,
Come tell me.”

When I was in the fifth grade, I think,

I woke up one day to my first period.

I’d heard of it,

But I didn’t understand it.

I called out for my mother.

I was panicking. 

She laughed and gave me Always pads.

She told me how to use them.

I was really upset.

I would always hear stories from my friends,
About how they were surprised the first time they got their periods,
And how it affected them,
And how they accepted their changing bodies.
Thank God for my mother,
May she rest in peace.
When my body started to change,
And show signs of puberty,
My mother explained to me what menstruation was,
What happens exactly during it,
And why it happens.

I used to like it when my male managers called me a 'man'
in their attempt to describe me as a reliable and efficient employee.
Who doesn't carry their emotional baggage (shit) to work?
womanhood, work

I was the only girl in an office full of men.
Sometimes, I’d have to work for twelve hours straight.
I’d get so exhausted when I got my period that I’d sometimes faint.
It’s not reasonable for me to get exhausted every month,
So I devised a story about how there’s something wrong with my kidneys.

I was disgusted at the blood coming out of me.
I saw it the way they did: dirty blood.
Blood that forbade me from praying.
Blood that meant a woman couldn’t sleep with a man—or so say they say.
Blood that I tried to hide.
womahood, period, body image

I was 13 years old the first I got it.
I got cramps,
So I went to the bathroom.
I was scared by the blood and called my mother.
She opened the door and saw me.
“Do you know what that is?” she asked me.
“Yes,” I replied.
She closed the door and sent someone to buy me pads.

I never feel shy asking him about anything.
He never turns me away.
“Let’s search for the answer together,” he’d always tell me.
Baba is amazing when it comes to respecting women.

I’m passive, weak, uneducated.
Veiled from head to toe.
One of his four wives.
Work in the kitchen all day.
And spread my legs wide at night.
That’s what you think, right?

I was in the 9th grade,
The first time I got my period.
I used to always hear about it from my friends.
Mama treated it as something normal.
She told me about it before I got it.
But I used to be embarrassed by it,
And didn’t want anyone at home to know when I had it,
Especially my brothers.
It made me very tired sometimes,
And they sometimes noticed.