What To Do When Your Boyfriend’s Asshole Best Friend Says, “Hey, Never Trust Anything That Bleeds For Seven Days And Doesn’t Die,

Right?”

OR The Only Poem I’ll Ever Write About Periods.

Don’t excuse him because he’s had

at least three lite beers

and is sweating through his black button down

that his mom or exgirlfriend

probably bought him.

Don’t excuse him because he’s been turned down

by the last six girls he went on dates with

after meeting them on tindr

with a picture that’s seven years old

Don’t excuse him because

he’s usually such a nice guy

because you don’t want to be a bitch

because you don’t want to cause a scene

because when you were seventeen

your sister told you

no one likes an angry feminist

Tell him,

Hey, Asshole:

Let me explain something to you.

Every goddamn motherfucking month since I was eleven,

a part of me

tore itself to shreds

ripped itself apart inside me

and then remade itself.

So yes, I bleed for seven days

and I don’t die

You know what else can do that?

Gods.

Immortal beings.

Things of legend.

Fuck, I can even

create life.

So I say, never trust anything that can’t

bleed for seven days and not die.

You know what that makes it?

Weak

Fallible

Mortal.

So let’s see, hon,

What you’re made of.

If you can bleed for seven days

and not die.

Rip out his jugular with your teeth.

And when he bleeds for seven seconds

and dies,

spit on his corpse and say,

I thought not.