To talk about Menstruation is not stigma but to hide is

When the people around us are ignorant on the needs of the girl child, I worry,

Sadness and shivers overshadow my plans for the future, how will I be able to stand firm when all I see is the blood gushing out of me,

How do I protect myself? Who will protect me? In this world full of vultures ready to taste the fruit as soon as I am ripe…I dread this moment,

I learn and hear about it in class but my mother never got the chance to talk about it, I wonder why sometimes? She succumbed to AIDS sad right, but she got it because she wanted to take care of us.

Such a rude awakening for me the girl child, to easily be swayed into the arms of vicious men ready to pounce on me when I am vulnerable and in need of sanitary wear,

It is not by choice that I am orphaned, come from a poor family that can barely put food on the table, I am the parent now, my little sisters look up to me, but how will I take care of them when their time to bloom comes?

Questions rush through my mind, will I be able to share with them that menstruation is a joyful moment? That your menstrual flow needs to be enjoyed like it’s a normal day without thinking if you have soiled your clothes,

I awake today, the new ME, embracing and celebrating menstruation like I ought to have done on my first day, yet circumstances would not allow me to do so.

I look back and it is, at that moment, I realised that I should not leave any girl behind, I want everyone to remember that a man bleeds for death, for agony and for misery, and a WOMAN bleeds for happiness and to create a new life.