AN OPEN LETTER TO MY MENSTRUAL PERIOD

March 3rd, 2011

Dear Colombian Pacho,

          You have been my monthly partner since I was thirteen, but I don’t understand why you arrived at that time; It is supposed that your arrival means women become sexually mature, but I wasn’t a woman, I was a girl and I didn't have any possibility of having sex. So what was your purpose in that period of my life? Let me guess… to spot my clothes, and my chair, to ruin my going out to the pool, to welcome my acne and my nasty hair in my private parts, to make me feel like a baby who had to wear diapers, to sleep just in one way in order to avoid spotting my bed, to convince my self-esteem about the growth of my boobs, to make me a topic of conversation in familiar meetings where people ask my mom if I had already "enfermado"? What was your fucking purpose? -Whoops, sorry for my expression-…You see Mrs. Rule… or should I say Mr. Period? Mr. Pacho? The Visit? Mr. Andrés? are you hermaphrodite? (it is not the point, but define your gender please) ok, you! Menstruation! You have been a real problem, and not only for me, but also for other girls who are mother by error; if you visit girls later, maybe in their twenties, you can prevent teenager unwanted pregnancies, can’t you?

          Now I’m 22 years old, but I can’t stand you, every 28th, when you and your friends “menstrual cramps” come, I cry because of everything: because I’m fat, because I’m thin, because my boyfriend didn’t call me, because he did, but I feel his voice had a different tone, because I’m zonked, because I'm bored of doing nothing; in brief, I cry just for the fuck of it. Whatever the main problem is with you, what I really hate is that you are very inopportune…On “those days”, I feel more sexually active, but you are there and it is impossible to do what I want; you are in the wrong place at a wrong moment, I kinda hate you! Well, if you are going to continue being my partner for the next 20 years, please don’t come on Fridays, on weekends, on holydays, on Easter week, on vacations and neither on Christmas. Nevertheless, don’t scare me please, if I need you to come -and you know what I’m talking about- be PUNCTUAL my dear friend.

See you on Monday!

A Colombian girl