Pranjal Asha:
Period Blood.
Your bedsheet looks beautiful,
Even when it is stained in the so called ‘gross’ period blood.
So before anyone commands you to change your bedsheet,
Tell them there is a reason why it is ‘your’ bedsheet.
Tell them that you will change it anyway.
Tell them you change it regularly and if you don’t, please do.
But tell them that your bedsheet has seen your womanhood better than them,
it has accepted it better than most of them.
Tell them about the times when you and them were kids,
Tell them how we used to wet our beds.
Tell them how it was human for us to pee in bed when we were kids.
Tell them the first thing our parents used to do after coming across our wet bedsheets was picking us up and changing our clothes to make sure we don’t fall sick.
Tell them it is human to stain your bedsheet.
Tell them it is human to stain the bedsheet.
Tell others that there isn’t any need to quickly cover the stain as soon as you spot it.
No.
You can first clean yourself,
You can brush your teeth,
You can do whatever the fuck you want to do
and let it stay there as long as you want to.
And then get back to it.
Gently.
Remove the bedsheet, and put it in the laundry.
It is easy.
Very easy.
Easy.
Keep it easy.
Bedsheets won’t judge you.
Humans ought not.
Pranjal Asha is a feminist based in Delhi, India. This poem was earlier taken from her facebook timeline and published by All Pakistan Feminists Association, on