Girl Blood Ritual Two

You might be wondering how I got here:

red handed, pants down, under the bleachers

by the football field with four other girls. Cross

my heart and hope to die, it’s not what you think.

What had happened was: I got my period

during gym class. We were running the mile.

There I was, giving it my all, chest tight,

calves and quads seizing up, really going

for it, defending my middle school record

when I felt an unnamed muscle deep, deep

inside of me tighten into itself like a slipknot.

And there was no girls’ bathroom by the track,

because why would there be? And the girls

had to come along, because the hive mind loves

a spectacle and I needed some guidance

from someone who had done all this before.

So naturally we gathered under the bleachers,

where the dim air was hazy with dust

just stirred and drugstore body mist sprayed

with a heavy hand by my friend, to mask

the ripeness of our sweaty adolescence.

Damn, we stink, she said and looked at me

as if  I might agree. As if I was not busy

finding the courage to stop myself up

with a cardboard applicator tampon

from the depths of someone’s gym bag,

saved for such an emergency as this. As if

three other girls weren’t watching me:

droplets beading at the back of my knees

and puddling in my many folded places,

while I kind of    bent    a little to find

the right angle. The girls looked on,

unsmiling, as if to say, Welcome to

the rest of  your life.  Join the club. And

I was like, I am the reigning mile champion,

And they cheered then grimaced, because

what is our cult of girlhood if not looking on

and feeling each other’s pain in our own

bodies, then saying, I have felt that too.