failing, again

I feel freshly 18 whenever I'm on my period

I vomit after taking a quick period-poo, and throw myself in the white hot of a cold shower. I stagger out, teeth chattering like a freak newborn with all her teeth grown in. A tampon is a kaleidoscope. I rip into the plastic opening and out comes this small bleary-eyed beast. It knows the inside of my vagina better than I do.

Granny panties on, tampon hanging loose, I crawl out of the washroom and hunker over the sliced strawberries I left on my desk. I was trying to have breakfast before the light headed absent vomit sharting took over my body. It’s easy to see this scene sketched out like a comedy. A laughing track howling in the background as I chowed down the sliced berries like someone was holding a gun to my head. The oooooo of the audience as I stumble into my blankets, topless with the blinds open for no one to see.

I am really good at downplaying my suffering. I mention this vomit-shower scene to a classmate the next day, after I ask her to save me a seat for class. I’m late for everything, and it’s something I’m trying not to be embarrassed about. Her eyes widen, she holds her hand to her mouth in surprise. She says she’s on her period too. I watch her open a pill bottle with precision, the lid’s slow turn like a revolving door in an empty hotel lobby. The pop clush, the sizzle shake and magic blue pill in her palm. No one else in the quiet lecture hall registers her consideration to endure her pain in silence.

2 days since the vomit shit strawberry sleep. This morning, my hives crawl up my wrists like a costumed red skin. I woke up saying the words ‘help me,’ the leftover prayer of a bad dream or for my itchy palms, I’ll never know. I have Chronic Urticaria — the unsolvable crime of raised flesh and burning skin without a cross to blame. This morning’s shower is lukewarm instead of ice cold. I yearn for steam as I take deep breaths, hives billowing on my right breast. I rinse, spin, get out, stare in my mirror, my puffy face reminding me of my mother’s sagging skin. I massage my face under cold water, remembering the tutorial I’d seen on Tiktok on gua-sha-ing your face with no instruments, just your God-gifted hands. I stretch and pinch until I’m pencil sharp and snakeskinned.

I decide to try a hair tutorial I’d saved on pinterest — a dragon braid. It’s easy enough, threading two strands out and under like a beaver carving her own tail. The white girl in the saved video has much thicker hair than I do; half of the hair on my scalp falls out in magificent tufts. I remember my hair stylist telling me I need to buy a microfibre towel. My professor who teaches psychoanalytic theory would say this is an example of treating a symptom rather than the person as a whole. The hair stylist being my doctor, the hair falling out my symptom. But why is the ground covered in full strands of hair? Why is a white girl teaching me how to braid my hair? Why is my skin more red than it is brown? I put a microfibre towel turban on my amazon wishlist.

My 10am morning medication alarm goes off while I’m strutting my class that just started, my white boots like solider’s feet in the grass. I’m late to class, but I remembered to take my medications. When I arrive, I sit in one of my least favourite seats — my back turned to the window. My voice feels insignificant in this room full of established writers. My professor points to myself and some other students, hoping to hear from the ‘quieter students’ on the pieces being workshopped today. I am usually outspoken, talking before I’m called on and cutting-board precise with my words. When it comes my turn to speak about the piece being workshopped, I turn to my fellow writer and tell her I envy her ability to write so beautifully. I feel my cheeks go warm (though my brown skin does’t give me away) and I cover up my confession with some insight on her prose.

I leave class feeling small and foolish. Another day of putting an arrow through my journal and wandering what caused it harm.

I feel like a failure, but I think I’m just on my period.