Poetry by Carson Wolfe

               TMMY PHTOG CC



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As I Live and Bleed

I soapbox my zoom conference 
with a radical feminist statement 
that I’m on a first day period vibe.

I unplug the webcam in dramatic 
protest for my menstrual migraine,
and I don’t care if this is an overshare. 

Because I don’t consent to silencing 
hormones that storm my body louder 
than white people who love orange 

presidents. The back cramps and codeine 
have turned my mouth into a nightclub 
toilet after all the vomit.

My bathmat is a whodunit on a women’s 
murder channel. Was it the husband?
The ex? The garden gnome? Plot twist…

It was my vagina!
A crime scene of blood where I stood 
unarmed after trickling water between

gently parted cheeks, and it burns, burns, 
burns, sang Cash during the aftermath 
of June’s period poops.

Last week I saw a t-shirt that read: 
I don’t trust anything that bleeds 
for five days and does not die,

worn by a man buying wank tissues 
in bulk and browsing the ready-meal 
aisle in Tesco. I thought to stuff his face

into a tikka masala and scream, 
nobody puts womb in the corner!
It grew your sorry ass! Bitch!

Then he would kneel before my lining
as it leaks its sacred wisdom 
into its third pair of undies today

and worship the unfertilised egg 
that breaks down like my voice 
when a colleague brags about 

eating KFC for lunch and I weep 
for the chickens. Because I am: 
unstable, unbalanced, unpredictable. 

Imagine the nuclear buttons that would 
be pressed if menstruators led countries.
Like men haven’t started all wars

by playing a game of my dick 
is bigger than yours. Like we are 
simply hysterical 

to name our pain, demand 
five days paid leave, free sanitary 
products or death to sexist jokes.

No. We want a farer workplace 
like, sorry Dave, my oestrogen 
is low today, do it your fucking 

self, and if the big boys won’t play 
nice with our rebellion,
we’ll reverse Handmaid’s Tale 

this shit, and keep only the best sperm 
for our queerspawn, and we will thrive
in our emotionally charged utopia 

led by PMS and 
Kamala Harris. 
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During lockdown, Carson adopted a cat to live like an eccentric writer, but now spends most of their time salvaging the poems her keyboard paws delete - rather than actually writing them. Surviving work can be found in Stone of Madness Press, Kissing Dynamite, and Brag Magazine amongst others.

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