PATRIARCHY

Wendy Allen


When I pull out my menstrual cup, I am drugged by the heavy silent sleep that accompanies bleeding and knock my bloodied cup to the floor. My red spilt milk remains within the confines of the fake Victorian tiles as if afraid of spreading outside of the lines. I do not cry but clean it up. When I return later, I can still see the outline of this perfect pool of blood on the porcelain and I choose to leave it there.

Wendy Allen has been published in Ambit, Poetry Wales, Aesthetica and The Moth. Her micro pamphlet was published in 2021 as a Legitimate Snack and her first pamphlet, Plastic Tubed Little Bird, will be published in 2023, again by Broken Sleep.