Tuesday, March 8, 2011

The Little Red Dot:


Uterus-Influenced Bad Poetry 
Once there was a little dot
The fairest in the land
But certain times of the month 
This dot would get way out of hand
The Monstrous Dot would transform,
A gruesome thing it was
Not completely out of the norm
And she'll slap you just because
Don't fuck with her, the Monstrous Dot
She's suffering anyway
She's getting flashes that are hot 
And angrier day by day
She rolls up to the pharmacy
Completely out of wack
She slaps the clerks recklessly
And eats the medicine wrack
Beware the Red Dot little friends
And take your birth control
Or let the suffering never end
Let the Anger take its toll

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Body

Dear Uterus: 
It has come to our attention that you fail to realize that the rest of us are trying to run a smooth ship here. You're okay for most of the time, but for a whole two weeks out of every single month you drive the rest of us insane. The Liver is indifferent to the entire situation, but let me just inform you that those of us, such as the Spinal Cord, who can't get a moments peace with your constant pressure and whining, curls up in pain because you make the Nervous System, who is usually a great guy, fall to pieces! Because of the bad treatment of the Nervous System, the hair follicles cannot relax, and most hairs are on end about the whole thing. Especially the Head Follicles and they don't play around...when they're bad they're BAD. The Lungs aren't fully affected, but your constant badgering, panic and causing of pain to everyone else makes them work extra hard and they are constantly short of breath. I know this because the Boobs filed an incident report; and they're pretty pissed because your hormones make them sore. Don't get me started on the Heart...that guy is really confused because he keeps pumping blood and calculating the loss caused by you, and he can't figure out why the whole System doesn't just shut down from blood loss for a week. He's not that bright, I'm afraid. The Digestive System...discombobulated. They really don't know if they're really hungry or just greedy, so they ask for things like chocolate cake with ice cream and want to process things like meat pizza and baked beans and wonder why they're producing huge amounts of gas and retaining water and excess lipids.
What I'm trying to say, dear Uterus, is that you're messing it up for everybody else and, well, I think I'm speaking for the entire System when I say that you're a bitch. Who needs to be stopped.
Think about it.
Yours,
The Brain
CEO, The Body
Manager of Emotions

Two weeks is all that is needed to become completely out of check in all aspects of a pretty well put together life. One day I’m flying high, getting things done. The next day, I’m just falling apart, popping pills, struggling through a thick haze, thinking about my next fix. The day was September 26th, 2006. I had just moved to southern France in the city of Toulouse and was getting used to the city. I loved it. Everything was going smoothly: I had a great apartment, I had new friends, a job, a bank account and a bus pass. I loved going to the cafes, eating croissants, watching people and being a French poser. Everything was going great until that morning. I woke up with pain shooting up my back, a pounding headache, an abdomen on fire and cramped thighs. It was the worst episode yet and all of the sudden, I hated everything and I couldn’t clearly see anything because of this red hazy rage I was experiencing. Who cares about France, I wanted drugs. This was the day that I realized I was not the one who was controlling my actions and my days. 
In my labyrinth of pain and suffering, I began to analyze my internal imprisonment. As it was my period that was the cause of this, it was biological. It was, of course, an affliction that I could not control, and not necessarily something I would like to get rid of all together either. It’s one of those things that you feel obligated to. Perhaps, I painfully mused, this obligation was biblically ingrained guilt as a result of Eve, that greedy slag who took it upon herself to partake of God’s forbidden fruit. I can’t get mad at her, though, because presumably it’s her “mistake” (or gluttony) that makes reproduction and sex a normal aspect of life. But she couldn’t have been too bright, stealing from the Creator and all.
It’s not like she did this to herself completely, I think, writhing to the right. I mean, presumably, she came from some dude’s rib, right? What common sense could someone possibly have if they technically just materialized out of somebody else’s expendable bone? Of course that bonehead girl didn’t think this whole forbidden fruit thing through. Eve is like that ditzy friend who messes it up for everyone else by being who she is. All women have that friend. The totally selfish girl who accidentally ruins things for everybody else, but you like getting a drink with her because she is totally fun and all the guys like her. We can’t lean on her when we are having issues, she won’t hold our hand through labor, she doesn’t keep tampons on hand, but damn it she will go to the club with us, get us drunk and give five dollars to the cabby on the way home. She also has enough information about us to possibly ruin us. Come to think of it, The Uterus and Eve have a lot in common. 
When I realized this about The Uterus, I instantly anthropomorphized it. It has bitterness in its voice and meanness in its temperament, but it will rock your world in bed and it will hold to term the most precious things in your life. My uterus clawed at my insides with its talon-endowed fallopian tubes and screamed obscenities up my spine and I cursed it and turned upside down, just off the side of the bed. However, I continued, The Uterus is also what it means to be a woman. It is an evil vessel of life that should be feared. Although it puts me through pain, it also gives me the euphoric realization that I could totally pull off creating something if I wanted to…you know, with a little effort and ambition, or even irresponsibly! I wondered if Eve had it all planned out that way in the first place. Was she really that much of a ditz? Or was she underhandedly scheming for a new image for the woman of 3500-4000 B.C.? All of this deep thought while twisting and turning upside down in bed until 2:00 p.m.! 
I finally pulled it together at 2:30 p.m. and lugged my Uterus to the grocery store across the street to buy some pain killers and chocolate. Now, in America, typical grocery stores carry a ton of convenient varieties of pain killers and happy pills. I asked for some type of extra strength pain killer and they didn’t have it. See, here’s the thing I learned about France that day: there are no over the counter drugs strong enough to compare to American drugs. We Americans hate pain and we Americans don’t want to feel. Drugs are a main point of interest. The French think that it’s okay to have minimally effective pain killers. I learned the way around that was by getting drunk off of glasses of wine that were cheaper than a Coke at cafes-but that’s another story entirely. Anyways, the grocer looked at me like he knew my problem (which he didn’t by any means) and I hiked up my burden and walked to La Pharmacie…all the way up the street, passed the Boucherie and the Patisserie AND the salsa club AND the barber shop. I found the big green cross that signified the pharmacy. Upon walking into the building situated inside of an old medieval house, I experienced a clean, white light; bright bottles of delicious relief lined the walls and I asked for the best brand for lulling my burden to sleep. 
“Je ne sais pas cette chose…I do not know what that is.”
After being very clear about what I wanted, it was obvious that there was no extra-strength anything and I was out of luck. I bought the closest thing to Ibuprofen and dragged my feet up what seemed like a two way hill, back to my apartment to wait out the scraping Uterus with the cat. Damn you, Eve. Damn you to Hell.