the first time i bled my mother had gone
back home to bury her father.
and even when she was in the kitchen
making coffee for the stranger
who had entered our home invited
or through my nightgown uninvited
my mother had gone
to tend to the needs of men
over her daughter.
my oldest sister had covered me
with bed sheets
a body pronounced dead
at the first sight of bleeding
and when i woke not yet knowing
of the shame my body
had committed, she asked me
if i had sat on the dirty ground outside
like maybe i was dirty
stained like that
in the dry blood of becoming.
finally. a woman
too long, and maybe
i had an infection.
like maybe i was ill
like the way all the girls back home
would let each other know
how they were sick meaning
they were bleeding.
she too had learned the body
is a crime scene, always at fault
for wanting to expose the secret
between her legs.
imagine how sick i am
coming in the mouth
of another woman-
an act
of unshaming the body.
she gave me a paper packet
told me to go in the bathroom
keep the blood a secret
place the sticky side on the inside
of my underwear.
the way he would tell me
how this is our secret
and no one else should know.
and how many times after the first time
i bled through my pants
in public.
like my body was evidence:
a floating corpse in water
coming up bloated.
how bloated this bleeding would make me feel.
still makes me feel.
no, we don't get to keep our secrets
in private.
bleeding is a public act
we cannot control.
the bleeding body is wiser
than the one that never bled willingly.
indeed there was pride in my walk that day
remembering what my father had always said
about never again raising a hand
to his daughters
once they bled.
how he would walk disconnected
with each step swallowing sorrow
as if he never felt.
i never expected him to protect me,
even while my sisters believed
he would save us from anyone
who dared break into our home.
the bleeding body is homeless,
at fault of losing itself
unable to be controlled
mad, irrational, dirty.
these kinds of bodies
cannot be broken into-
their blood is proof of having been broken into
over and over again.
there is no need to protect
the bleeding body.
it brought it upon itself.
when my mother returned
fatherless
and we told her how i had bled
whispering to protect the man
in our lives from knowing
what this blood meant
she warned me not to jump rope
or sit on cold surfaces
but nothing about how to protect myself
from familiar men
in case my parents
would be too naive to understand
anyone is suspect
she left so many blank spaces
in her story, blank
and dense with years of covering up
crime scenes
that only the bleeding body
can uncover.
