WAITING FOR MY PERIOD
SAMANTHA KENNEDY
2011
Day 1
I pee clear, not a pink drop.
Waiting to wake in the middle of the night
To find my panties stained with
A red Rorschach test
Day 2
forget to eat
then binge on salty snacks
sitting in class, waiting, waiting, waiting
replaying nights I sweated beneath him
losing keys, English papers, eyelashes, fingernails
sweating into my morning coffee
Day 3
Praying to any God
Any anti-fertility God
Sending out desperate, frantic thoughts
into the stratosphere
knowing, possibly, I could be shackled
nursing some gummy, wrinkled thing
Day 4
Smoking pot with Ali,
let it slip
I’m late
what will you do?
Silence.
Drive home
Cry at red lights
And sleep in white sheets
Day 5
Thinking of baby names that sound good
with my last name
because
I don’t really know what he’ll do
Not really
Thinking vainly of stretch marks, sagging breasts
engorged nipples, the spread of my ass
visions of sacrificing my body on a pier
Day 6
Thinking about the morning after pill
But it’t s too late for that, and I know it
I realize everything hinges on memory
Doing the same thing every night for seven months
Swallow little blue pill
swallow swallow swallow
forget
feeling tight jowls of guilt
and I’m waiting with a still heart in my mouth
waiting to birth a bloody phantom of myself.