Menstruation: The Musical

Some my role model bi who may or may not have had first class says I can’t not hype things. It’s not my fault la. I discovered Frayed Jacket, and if you haven’t been there, it’s only because you haven’t had the data, and you’re forgiven. Monsieur Frayed writes with a candidness that’s almost uncomfortable. I suppose it’s because some of us like to live in a one-dimensional space, in some pink bubble, oblivious to what goes on within the blurred lines. And he doesn’t. And he writes it, raw and true, and painfully relatable. Reminds me of something I read about how writers must embrace pain and ugliness instead of running away from it. Oh, and he’s a really good writer. Makes you wonder how much longer you’re going to have to live before you get to where he’s at.

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P.S. The following is definitely a musical if you read it with Christopher Plummer’s voice in the back of your mind. Or Joey B. Or, somebody.

The following is also what happens when you’re neither a poet nor comfortable working outside your comfort zone but your Dad buys a new modem and you want to try it out.

Menstruation: The Musical!

There comes a time every month when

A famous memory verse

Of crimson clothes and white linen

Is lived out in reverse.

A pang that draws a stark grimace,

That cramping when you sit,

Dribbling from a womanly space –

Good Lord, Menstruation’s hit!

Faces break out in fleshy zits

Breasts swell and grow tender

Girls might want to their own wrists slit

Not them – blame the vulva!

Shooting tendrils of fiery pain

Like someone yelled ‘Dracarys!’

Up to your sorry abdomen

Menstruation’s some mad virus.

It’s then a girl will trade her cash

To stock up on Naproxen,

Or Advil, Taabea – the mad rush

As each one picks her poison.

But do they help? These bitter brews,

Or they’re just placebos

That rob you and your mind confuse,

Ease not Menstruation’s blows?

And don’t forget the blood, that blood!

That glorious scarlet nectar

That sometimes gushes like a flood

Dispensing by the litre

At times it’s stringy, thick red goo

That clots and leaves in drops

When your legs part inside the loo

You hear Menstruation’s plops.

It doesn’t come too wahala

For those who have been active

With infant-making brouhaha

And used nothing protective.

Each passing day’s aridity

Is interpreted as

‘Ooh-la-la, here comes a baby!’

Then, Menstruation! At last!

Permit me to this question ask

My mind is all a-pondering:

Does lust still burn from dawn to dusk

When your wife’s in her bleeding?

Would night still find you embroiled in

A horizontal tango?

Or small blood peh, nose is wrinkling –

Menstruation means round zero?

Wait, something else plays hide and seek

Ahh, fear that makes you shudder

That in your pad there’s been a leak

That’s coloured your posterior

Tampons! Eish, fearsome devices

Much like some male organ

Round which your walls clinch like vises

Menstruation’s literal woman

The problem with writing this thing –

How will I now conclude?

A picture, or moral lesson?

Quotes from some random dude?

I’ll just log out while self-respect

Still has a place in me

But, ha! I with myself object,

Menstruation’s pic you’ll see!

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Remember, Frayed Jacket.

Click.

I was going to end with ‘Meow,’ but Click sounds more…crisp.

Meow.