The Weight of the Red Tide.

It begins in whispers,

a dull ache rising,

soft like the hum of a storm

just beyond the horizon.

But soon, it roars.

It twists, it wrings,

my body turns against me,

a battlefield of blood and flesh that I cannot win.

________

Each month, it arrives, uninvited,

a guest I cannot refuse.

The cramps claw deep,

tugging at the strings of my core,

wringing tears I’ve learned to swallow.

____

They call it “natural,”

but this feels anything but that.

It’s a curse with no cure,

a scream I must silence,

pain i must endure.

____

So I mask it all.

They say, “Be strong.

Get up, move on,

every woman goes through it.”

But am I not more than this pain?

The world spins on,

and I must carry its weight

while my insides collapse,

torn apart by an unseen war.

________

I remember the first time:

the shock, the stain,

the hurried whispers to “clean up,”

the warning that this was only the beginning.

“Pregnancy will hurt worse,” they said.

“Don’t make a fuss.”

But how can I not,

when my body betrays me

with every wave of this crimson tide?

_______

I clutch my stomach,

hands trembling,

as if I could hold the pain at bay.

But it doesn’t listen.

It rips through me,

sharp and merciless,

a cruel reminder that I am alone in this.

_____

A burden I cannot escape,

a cycle that takes and takes

and leaves me hollow.

______

Oh, to be free of this—

to float above it all,

weightless, unbound,

to know a life where my body

is no longer my tormentor.

______

But here I am,

each month,

bearing the tide,

bleeding, breaking,

and somehow still rising.

_____

Till it repeats,

opening again, overflowing in me,

drowning me in its red waves.

And once again, I am all alone,

afraid and undone.

_______

Some wonderful art depictions because why not….