Bleed

I submitted some samples of work to get feedback and was surprised to receive a few lines. It did sound very algorithm generated in a manner of speaking but none the less, it was a revert. I’ve always hesitated to put any of my work for scrutiny because how can any art really be evaluated? It’s such a fluid experience involving the creator, the creation, the receptor and the spaces of memories in between them.

Sharing one of the pieces here. Bleed is a disassociated observation of menstruation and its meander through the lives of women, young and old, fertile and barren.

Bleed

I watch as the blood runs thin

Metallic smells

ricochet off bathroom walls

as the stained cloth

washes a life that might have been

Is there loss?

No, just relief

But what is it my sister feels?

She of the barren womb

and silent home

I’m soon approaching

the drying of my eggs

The signs are there

The dropping sag

The beginnings of fatigue

A heaviness that doesn’t lighten

with menstrual blood

40 odd years is a long time…

The blood flows for days

Stays silent for months

Like all my sisters and mothers

I’ll deny

the whiskers on my chin

the thickening waist

I’ll never know when

the blood will finally depart

A year may pass

and then one day

Pause

Menopause

For now I bleed

like my daughter bleeds