period pains

Usually a tolerable dull ache sitting comfortably and uninvited at the base of my tummy, just above the star of the next 4-5 days, but a day ago, I felt pain that made me rethink my stance of being a woman.

To best understand how a cramp feels is to have a uterus, but for those who aren't in possession, I'll try to describe the sensations felt and thoughts thunk yesterday.

Imagine the feeling of a punch - not the pain that inevitably fades, the initial shock of the impact, the pain that causes you to reel and contort, that is sharp and unwelcoming. That level of discomfort is typically maintained, but not in a predictable fashion like a punch ; period pains are artful and strategic with their attack, and choose to dance around your abdomen without warning. Perhaps like slow cutting of knives into your stomach, but the one cutting is wearing a blind fold and needs to let out some steam and as their anger builds those cuts quicken, become disorderly, brutal and cruel. Or maybe the pain would be better described as the movement of the ocean as it appears serene and beautiful but as the skies darken and a thick cumulus obstructs what was once clear and blue, the water beneath follows suit and swells into a destructive wave, thrashing the shore any foreign bodies within as some form of divine punishment on all of those who have crossed her unspoken boundaries.

These feelings are equipped with a realisation which has the potential to be equally painful. If you've been in a biology classroom you'd know that the cause of period cramps is to aid in the shedding of the uterine lining, lining which is now rendered useless due to my failure to be inseminated. This monthly occurrence can be avoided for 9 months but at the cost of my body and essentially the rest of my life as I'd have to raise a child. As an 18yr old that isn't in my plans for the foreseeable future. The discomfort of a period is inescapable, and something I manage every month despite having never signed up in the first place. Although it has purpose and I am grateful for the reminder of fertility, I struggle to process a period as beyond something to spite me.

✦

Trying to translate words into a feeling as abstract and subjective as pain was harder than I thought but I hope this throwaway piece was at least enjoyable to read!

-Yemisi