Menstruation Triptych

By Jihyun Yun

Issue 38 • Fall 2018 • Poetry

1st Place Poetry

2018 Summer Contest

In this triptych, Jihyun Yun balances some of the many contradictory dynamics of menstruation and its connections to gendered violence. Blood here is both a signal of crisis averted and a reminder of violation; warped and silenced by femme-shaming, but never quite asked to stand in for womanhood. I’m impressed by the delicate navigation of these complexities, as well as such charged, lyric moments as “Tissue blossoms. Blood tea. Thirteen” and “The organic green tangle I am / also blooms best under moonlight.” I love the strange, difficult chord produced by these three vignettes.

– Franny Choi

I am so happy to be
bleeding, I fold the unused
test into the black hem
of my pocket, just to carry
this solitude with me.
Seedless belly, beloved
fallow, I.

I’m so happy
to be bleeding, I treat
myself to sangria
and ice cream, weave
flowers of invasive
species in my hair,
sing praises to Korea’s
over-the-counter BC.

At home, I’m so happy
to be bleeding, I pummel
my stomach against
the kitchen counter,
just in case. I know
it doesn’t work
that way, but he came without
permission and inside.
I’m irrational is what I mean.

Bloodless, I’ve heard stories
of women flying to other countries
to terminate but I’m too woman
and poor to have a choice in this world
you’ve thrust me towards

so Lord, in this life I’ll happily
bleed and bleed. Let the
animals gnaw through every
dam. Let the tides overpower.

II.

She’s never wanted to mother though the world’s demanded nothing else from her. She holds the napkin to her girlhood, watches the cerise leech into the quilted fabric. Thank heavens for periods, the rivers they carve into their bed of mortal meat. Tissue blossoms. Blood tea. Thirteen, she is my mother, thinking of the fabled student, years ago, who was never taught menstruation. Who thought the red escaping her human aperture was a sign of deadly sickness, wrote a letter to her mother, and took her own life. Forgive me Mama, I don’t want to die slow. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. In a world of men, this is the cost of blood. Why let girls bleed without telling them what it means? Why bloody your hands on another’s blood-body journey? She wraps the cloth close to her blood-body, draining the day closed. She does so love the act of escaping, even when it is her own womanly heat escaped. Please live freely in this blood vine of your singular life. In time, I will lodge myself within you and halt the cycle, the napkin still white between your thighs. I know I will not be worth it, but somewhere, it is written. Oh mother, I am selfish, to cling to your life merely as I am.

III.
Here, it is not my cycle that bleeds
me, but my lover tearing through
before I am ready. It should have
mattered when he didn’t care
about my pain, but when in love,
I love even the wounds. [I’m so tired
of writing about his blue room,
let it stop now] Evening primrose open
beyond the window, lifting their
stamens towards the night.

I understand.
The organic green tangle I am
also blooms best under moonlight.
Six moons from now, I won’t be here
anymore. I’ll be in New York scalding
my tongue on diner coffee, spitting
the grinds on my plate of eggs scraped
immaculate. I’ll be drunk and happy
on 32nd street. I’ll be twenty-three,
I’ll finally understand all he did to me

there on that blue bed. Gondolas
rocking to driftwood in my dreams.
The hurt he said I was born to eat.
My, Stop. And then my, Yes.
I bleed like girls are taught to bleed,
pretending I am fine. I tore you
badly, he says, and I swear he is happy.
He holds his reddened fingers
to my eyes to show me
what I’m made of.

Jihyun Yun

Jihyun Yun is a Korean-American Poet from California. A graduate of the MFA program at New York University, she is also the recipient of a Fullbright Research Fellowship in the arts. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Bat City Review, Poetry Northwest, Adroit and elsewhere. She currently resides in Ann Arbor and is working on her first poetry collection Some are Always Hungry.