Mama explained periods to me when I was young,
Around a year before I got mine.
She used to tell me when she was tired because of period pain.
I got my period really early.
I was in the fourth grade.
womanhood, period

I got my period at the end of elementary school,
During the summer vacation.
I didn’t know what it was.
I thought I was sick,
Or had some sort of problem.
I asked my mother in tears.
“It’s normal,” she said.
She didn’t explain anything.
“Normal how?” I asked her.
She still didn’t explain anything to me.

I wasn’t feeling well for over a month.
I had a stomach-ache,
And was feeling down all the time.
My mother took me to see a doctor when I told her.
After he examined me, he said,
“There’s nothing wrong with you.
Eat well,
And stop eating food that isn’t home-cooked.”
A month later,
I got my period.
I didn’t understand what it was at first.

They separated us.
Girls in one class,
And boys in another.
I thought it was better,
So that we’d be more comfortable,
And be able to ask questions freely.
But after explaining the upper part,
Ms. Amina said,
“That’s it.
You’ll read this lesson alone anyway.”

School, Period

I was 9 years old.
I remember coming back from school,
And finding some blood in my underwear.
I thought I’d gotten injured,
And didn’t give it much thought.
I became afraid the following days,
When there was still more blood.
I didn’t want to tell my mother,
So she wouldn’t yell at me.

I’m a girl,
And I have two brothers.
I’ve always been told that I’m a “reckless” person.
But like I said,
I’m a girl who was brought up around two brothers.
What was I supposed to be like, then?
There was obviously a chance I’d turn out this way.

My story is a little bit different.
I, too, wasn't close to my mother,
So I couldn't talk to her about it.
And I was a very late bloomer.
At 14, every girl in my school talked to each other about it,
And I had no idea what it was.
I felt that something was wrong with me.
I felt left out.
womanhood, period

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 feel like I can’t be feminine and taken seriously at the same time.
I have to either be a child or act like a man to be given worth and acceptance.
Strong women are considered to be confusing—troublesome.
womanhood, social pressure

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