i.
I never want to suffer menstruation, ever again. I don’t ever want
You to come up to me with a packet of cookies and lie to me as if you can’t
See those blushing breakouts on my face. Give to me only a ripe pear
Of uterus, so that I don’t have to bother with the stink of blood and something
purely
Animal,
The way you sleep next to me those nights, hard, and somewhat
Afraid,
Or crimson-drenched cloth that leaves me shaking on the toilet at night, leaving you
to shine strange yellow lights in my eyes
The next morning.
So I leave you flustered and red, panting and sick, the way I started.

ii.
But I never want to suffer men, ever again. I don’t want you to wrap your arms me
tight, squeezing me just the way
I like,
whispering in my ear about how beautiful I am, how adorably I sleep and
(or) sneeze.
Instead, give to me a fat, balding
Onion; something I can peel clean, peel sinfully these
Layers off, because the sting of the eyes, this tightness of my stomach,
These tears that pour down my face,
taste exactly the way
You do,
or rather, the way I
Don’t, not anymore.

iii.
I don’t ever want to suffer me, ever again. I don’t ever want
To wake up one day and see some exotic Bengali beauty, to have
to walk past dark-eyed men every morning
And women whose gazes eat my words.
Instead, give me the strength, Lord,
When they ask me why I don’t go back to Bangladesh anymore, when they laugh
At how terrible the rape rates are now, Lord,
because why not call it back?
Let me say nothing about the women who spent nights naked and
bloody beneath floating shapla petals
Sweet Lord,
But, yes,
oh yes,
let us
call it back again—

Lydia Abedeen