Poem: “Women, My Body”

I do not know about other women—
but why are sanitary pads so expensive?
Something I never asked for, never chose,
arrives each month with a price tag and a test:
comfort or survival—which do you suppose
a strong woman picks? We know the rest.

The cheap ones bulk beneath your clothes like shame,
trap heat like plastic sealed against your skin,
shift all day until the adhesive came
undone—and then the race begins.
Gravity and panic. Bag torn open wide.
Does anyone have a pad? You learn to ask
with one hand pressed careful to your side,
smiling through it, since that is the task.

Only discomfort. Only a few days.
Only the rash where rough edges drag your thighs.
Only the wet-delay after a laugh—that haze
of seconds where you calculate and rise.

The soft ones, breathable, full-coverage, kind—
the ones that let you briefly feel like you—
cost the most. So every month you find
yourself debating what your body’s due.

I once wore a pad all day in preparation.
My period never came. I sat there, spent,
gloom mistaken for menstruation—
nobody knew what that wasted pad meant.

In secondary school, a brand came around.
Free pads, a talk, a few hours of care.
That was the first real pad I ever found.
Some girls still haven’t gotten there.

Tissues. Cloth. Reusable pads they wash
and hope stay soft. And now online, a trend—
scoop it out, they say, with techniques harsh
enough to show how close we are to the end

Of what women will do to dodge the cost
of bleeding. That alone should be the headline.
Not the hashtag. Not the things we’ve glossed
with celebration, drawn in a bright line.

Philanthropists—your food is noted. Good.
But when you pack your gifts and plan your giving,
add sanitary pads. Add what you should
have always known is basic to our living.

A friend and I once joked: Free pads in the manifesto—
that’s how you win the women’s vote for real.
We laughed. But under every punchline’s guise
lives a truth too tired to appeal.

Periods are not luxury events.
And comfort is not something to be earned.
Beyond the hashtags and the compliments—
this is the conversation we’ve adjourned.

END

From the table of the "Friendly Poet", Chinonso Achugbu

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