The clot plops into the toilet. This one is larger than a tennis ball, I can feel it. I wrap my arms around my belly and squeeze. Surely, I should be in pain after emptying myself like that. I raise my phone and check the date: Aug 28. One month of bleeding. How am I still alive? The fear tears through my throat and drops in the empty space of my belly.
My fingers quickly type in my password and I am on Google searching about my symptoms. Polycystic ovary syndrome, menopause, endometriosis, fibroids, thyroid problems. None of the options reassure me. Tears gather around my eyes like pregnant clouds. Just yesterday, me and my younger sister were talking about how life could end at any time and how death was no respecter of age or status.
For a woman, the passing of blood is a sacred act. That is what we were taught by our mothers. This knowledge makes me reluctant to tell anyone about my problem. I tell myself that if I am dying, I would rather die without dragging everyone into my problems.
Stepping out of the restroom feels like landing on another planet. One in which I have to raise my head and smile even when I feel like getting down to the floor and wailing to my heart’s content. My mother walks past me and I am reminded of how helpful she usually is with problems. Telling her would mean breaching a level of intimacy with myself. I go to bed that night hugging the silence the way my womb chooses to hog blood.
The next morning, there is a new set of clots. These ones pour out without remorse or hesitation. The fear of death becomes so thick and pungent that I imagine a monster complete with horns and red eyes waiting beside my window. My feet take themselves to my mom’s room. She is chatting online, but she looks up when I enter. Mommy, I’ve been bleeding for one month now, I tell her. She stares at me for a moment, then her face crumbles like dough left alone for too long.
“That is a very serious matter,” she says as she turns away from me.
Do you think you have lived enough? What will you do if you go to the hospital and the doctors tell you that you have a short time to live? What if they say you are never going to have kids? Questions chase themselves around, in my head.
For someone who has always wished for many children, the possibility of being sterile and unable to have any leaves me with a weakness around my shoulders. In that bubble, I discover that you do not need water to sink, fear has its own moisture. My mom tells me not to panic. She says I might just be approaching menopause.
I, a twenty-two-year-old woman, watch my mother as she talks about the kind of infertility in my dad’s family, and explains that I could have inherited it. The words come out from her mouth so easily, but they have a hard time slipping through the cracks in my heart. I tell her I do not believe that I am infertile— surely someone would feel it if she was?
“Just be careful. Eat good food and prepare to marry early,” she says after a moment of heavy silence.
In my dream, two men stand before me in wedding colors and I have to choose one for a husband. They are both handsome, but one of them wears a heavily embroidered shirt and this draws me to him. Vaguely, the feeling that I am too young to get married fills me. I remember my mother’s voice telling me, get ready to marry early.
The words clamp around my throat like a fist. It is my wedding day, people gather around us. The air is humming, but no one is moving or dancing. I do not attempt to talk and neither does the man beside me. Husband, my mind chimes in. My husband hands me wads of cash to spray my family with. One moment they are five-hundred-naira notes. Another moment they are some kind of Chinese currency. I take it from him and proceed to spray them.
Everything happens so fast like it normally does in dreams. We are in the bedroom laughing. We are walking inside a green field with no flowers in sight. He is frying scrambled eggs on the gas cooker. He begins to talk to himself. I watch him as he does. It feels as though there is something wrong with him.
I walk out of the house through the walls to where his younger brother is. I tell him of my husband’s behavior, but I do not get a reply. Back at my house, my husband sits on our matrimonial bed. He beckons to me, but I stay where I am, knowing that if I were to go to him, he would never let me go. He gets up and I sprint in the opposite direction. I run away from sickness and madness, out of my dreams and into reality, only to start running again.
Anointing Obuh is a writer, singer and photographer from Nigeria. She is 20:35 Africa’s New Poet for the month of January 2021. Her works are forthcoming and have been featured in: Lolwe, Third Estate Art, Rattle, Josephine Quarterly, The Lumiere Review, and elsewhere. She was a finalist for Hollins Literary Festival Contest 2021, the Stephen Dibiase Poetry Contest 2021 and Long-listed for the Nigerian News Direct Poetry Prize 2021. She was guest editor for DRR Issue 3. She says hello.
SPOT IMAGE CREATED BY WARINGA HUNJA
HMS is an arts & culture nonprofit (Hypertext Magazine & Studio) with two programs: HMS empowers adults by teaching creative writing techniques; HMS’ independent press amplifies emerging and established writers’ work by giving their words a visible home. Buy a lit journal (or two) in our online store and/or consider donating.
