Womenstration

by Lorraine Durbin

The first day men began womenstrating, they thought they were dying. Of course, blood coming out of a penis would be surprising. Around the world, husbands shouted for their wives and showed them the mess. Their wives laughed because any woman knows the difference between common blood and period blood. They sat their husbands down and explained that this was a natural part of human life- that they were officially men. They’d started their periods.

When broken the news, wives, whom most were menstruating, went out to the drug store to grab man-hoods—those cotton condoms used to collect blood from the penis. Wives clutch their uteruses but walk with their cramps right past the pack of six tampons for twenty dollars and towards the bin of man-hoods. A sign says, “Take what you need!” They grab a handful, fork over twenty dollars for tampons, and return home to find their husbands on the phone.

“No, I won’t be in this week. Womenstration.” The next day, wives return home from work to a check in the mail. Paid womenstration leave. Their husbands cry out in pain, while the wives microwave the heating pad for them. None dare to protest because the husbands are ready to say, “But you’re used to it!”

BIO: Lorraine Durbin is a fourth-year creative writing major at Susquehanna University with a concentration in creative non-fiction. While I’m not writing, she reads as much as che can, dances, plays with my Great Dane, and experiments with cocktails.