The bloodstain on my bed-sheet— Let me conceal it with the pillow or the blanket or my bag or anything before it catches your attention, before you look at it and look away in an unintentional acknowledgement OR in your rare stupidity or blissful ignorance or surreal broad-mindedness ask me about it. I don’t want to but I am going to lie and tell you that maybe I slapped an obese mosquito in sleep or maybe I spilled over paint or tea or something. Why am I lying though? Is it so hard to admit that this could be something those absorbents failed to absorb? Is it so hard to accept the curse (or one of the curses) of womanhood? But isn’t it what I am supposed to carry around with pride? How come it has succumbed to being one shameful act on which I don’t even have any conscious control? Forget about tampons or pads, why is this issue something that you can’t absorb? Forget about you, why is it something I can’t absorb in my head? Why can’t I accept that it indeed is okay and has always been. That it is okay if I step into the temple. That it is okay that I take leave over menstrual cramps. That it is okay to be how we are. That it is okay to talk about it and it is okay if I refuse to hide the fact that I might be menstruating.
The bloodstain on my bed-sheet— It takes an interesting shape if lately, you have spotted me smiling too much on my own and if you have snapped me out of my daydreams quite frequently. It doesn’t require you to be a rocket scientist to deduce what might be going on here. So maybe you can infer that I might have had an interesting night recently. The blood stain on my bed-sheet; a gentle reminder of how my hymen broke, how I lost my purity, how I broke the unsaid rules. Or maybe it can also remind you of the fact that how a woman’s vagina is not simply a socket to plug into. Maybe it can remind you of her reluctance or her pain. But of course, you are not supposed to mind or even pay attention to my disrespectful and shameless language here. And if possible, I request you to please overrule my objection as many times as you wish.
The bloodstain on my bed-sheet— A very simple tool for the comfortable passage for your judgement. A silently unnecessary reason for my panic. I must give this cloth for laundry or else I will be sentenced to lifetime embarrassment. I am still serving for the time when I miscalculated the onset of my periods, when I was told through actions and suppressed words the state of my destroyed uterine wall and how the evidence of destruction laid projected on my white skirt. How disgusting is this blood that is meant to harbor a life! How disgusting is this blood that is meant to guard my health! How disgusting is this blood that gives me capability to bear a child! How disgusting and impure is this blood indeed! The bloodstain on my bed-sheet; let’s cover it up immediately before anyone sees.
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The Turquoise Ink 