Roseline Mgbodichinma

Ten Ways of Looking (.) Period

i

Periods are like wild berries

They come silk - trickle down your thighs

Stay

Then disappear like a sly sting

ii

My words fly weightless like air

I spill things my ears stole from the gut of the night

The only way to stop my mouth from caging adulterers with the truth

Is to put a period to the moans swimming in my head

iii

Between my legs there is an estuary of redness

Waving back & forth in my groins

It feels like a slippery crucifixion(.)

iv

Blood and semen is same

Semen & blood is same

Both of them expel

v

A period is a protest

& every tantrum I throw is supplication

To my cycle

I say - can we not crucify this month?

vi

Life is the opposite of water (.)

vii

My whole being is metaphor for flight

Ask my mother

The strip lines doubled

When her period had not paused

viii

A period is not a full stop

It’s a bridge

ix

The colon was cancerous enough

To leave my father in a coma

This is the period life flashes into a dash of ellipsis

& death comes with an apostrophe

x

Cotton barriers & pickle shaped torture

Sometimes even a whole cup

I left diapers when I understood the shape of potty

I will not relive this childhood

I bleed free (.)

Bio

Roseline Mgbodichinma is a Nigerian writer whose works have appeared in various publications online and in print. She is an NF2W Scholarship Recipient, a SprinNG Alumna, the Third Prize winner for the PIN food poetry content and a Contributing Fiction Editor for Barren Magazine. You can reach her on her blog at www.mgbodichi.com