by Rose Oliver
Kneeling before the statue of the Virgin Mary, her arms outstretched, expression beatific, I adopt a prayerful pose. Mary’s face is illuminated by the flickering flames of a bank of votive candles. I drop my dime into the offering box and hear its metallic clink echo throughout the church. So much depends upon my prayer and dime investment.
At school, I overhear something disturbing. In the bathroom, the Senior high school girls stand clustered before the mirrors over the sinks. I am only a naïve Freshman. They apply more smashed-red tomato lipstick, and mascara that clumps like clotted tar on their eyelashes. All of them have breasts. Breasts the size and shape that boys notice. I have no breasts and still sport a T-shirt under my blouse.
“Oh, damn it! I have my period! “ one girl shouts. This baffles me. Isn’t a period what goes at the end of a sentence?
I dare not ask these girls what period means. Instinctively I know it has nothing to do with grammar.
So, I pray. Every spare dime purchases another votive candle with a fervent prayer attached.
“Please, please, “I beg. .“ I know periods happen to every girl, but could you please make an exception in my case?” Mary was, after all, the original Wonder Woman. She had a baby with no male involved. Did Mary have periods, I wondered?
Well, Mary was not sparing me from periods.
One day, at home in the bathroom, as I pulled down my underwear, I saw it: a big red dot. A blazing red circle like the flag of Japan. This could not be true.
I remove the stained pants. I roll them into a ball and rummage through the laundry hamper trying to hide them in the bottom.
Of course, Mom found them. ”You’ll have a period every month now,” she said.
“Forever?” My lips quiver.
“No, just until menopause, when you’re 40 or 50.“
Now I knew. Not only did a period end a sentence, but it also began one – a life sentence! She adds that I should now be careful around boys. An unnecessary warning - I already detested the lot of them. A group of boys recently shook the chair I sat in to determine if I had breasts yet.
I hate that I now have no control over my body. Breasts appear resulting in unwanted male attention. A mere attempt to simply walk down the street is impossible without being subjected to catcalls and obscenities.
On the way to high school one morning, a classmate asked me, “What boy do you like?” The correct answer was “no one.” But under peer pressure, I thought of one nice boy.
“I like Stevie!”, I said.
“That fairy!!” she shrieks.
I had no idea why she called Stevie a fairy. But I rather liked that someone I liked was regarded as magical. At that moment, I recognized that Stevie was a kindred soul, a fellow defier of the grammar rules, and the proper roles.
No one invited me to the prom, so I became my own choreographer, inventing unique dance steps and songs with lyrics no one understood.
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Rose Oliver is a retired Registered Nurse. Her work has appeared in Haiku Journal, One Art: A Poetry Journal, and Remembered Arts. Viewless Wings, and a number of anthologies. She lives in Western Massachusetts.
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