Eleven hours of heavy period pain.
Everything below the neck hurts in a different way.
The strongest painkillers are not working.
Feeling trapped like a stranger inside my body.
Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Can’t rest. Just waiting for it to pass.

In the fetal position mostly. Every now and then,
the sharpest pain impulse is hitting my pain receptors.
And my whole body shakes.
It is a most visible reaction. An automatic one.
like a big spasm. You can see the rhythm of the pain,
the coming and going of the waves. A performance
for the longest hours. And no audience except me and bed.

Which is not actually so nice to see.
Luckily nausea isn’t present,
so my acid reflux is perfectly still.
My colitis as well. Because I eat barely anything.
Mostly rice the whole day. water and tea.
After it passes just a long long sleep.
To recover. the body from this extreme,
the condition which causes itself.
It is meaningless to ask such a woman
about resilience and strength.

I mean,
read it slowly again. visualize – the above list,
the lost hours of sleep and rest.
Or anything you can do instead
of counting minutes and waiting for it to end.
I didn’t choose it, that is what I have.
Every month, on one day, I am reborn in the pain.
so please don’t ask me about strength and resilience.
I would like to be strong in a different way.