(Un)stained

 "I am sick", something that the 5 year old heard from her maa, when she asked her why she can't sleep with her in their bedroom. 

"Don't touch me, else you can't sleep with dada", maa said as she flinched when the 6 year old tried to wake her up in the middle of the night because she was too scared to go to the bathroom alone.

"It is that time of the month", maa whispered to dada when she would lay on bed cringing with her arms hugging her stomach. The 8 year old would peek from the door, too scared that she would lose her maa.

"I want my periods", the 13 year old silently prayed in the nights as she awaited her time;  as she scrutinized her underwear for bright red spots; as she comprehended the known-unknowns of her body secretly. Secretly, because the last time she asked why, she was lied to.

"The boys need not know what we talked in this room" the teacher said after the lecture on how 'normal and natural menstruation is'. The 14 year old preserved the secret for years to come with a big chunk of silence and a tad bit of shame.

At 15, her vagina obliged the law of nature. As she bleeds, she is forced to oblige the norms of society; to appease its restrictions disguised in "We are only trying to protect you". Protect her from what? From the liberty she is entitled to or from the authority she has over her body? Or from the uninvited gazes that you approved?


As she bleeds, her body is now claimed by her parents, husband, boyfriend, the society and even the 'uninvited gazes'.


As she bleeds, her hormones are blamed; her mental balance is questioned before they call her emotional, frenetic and unreliable that restrain her desires.


As she bleeds, she is stuffed with silence, shame and embarrassment by the blood stain on her skirt that screams the word period, by the many layers of newspaper in which her femininity is concealed precisely with her maxi pad and displayed to the world for mockery.


As she bleeds, the 18 year old no longer needs to be suppressed but demands to be embraced; she no longer needs to be tolerated but demands to be liberated. She no longer affords to pay the cost that you demanded for her casualties.


Her period no longer needs an oration but a conversation. A conversation that is not tainted with your stigma but painted with her dignity for the blood she shed does not need salvation.