Teja Sudhakar

It Took Me Years to Question

I Googled ‘bleeding from private parts’ and the first link said cancer.
The second link said menstruation.
I clicked the second and prayed it was that one.
–Hena, Delhi

The first time, I thought I was dying.
I wrapped my legs in bandages.

Mother said it’s a punishment
from god. Said this is why some women

loose their hair against temple floors,
wear robes the color of burn marks.

When it comes, I’m not to touch
the music box, not to kneel

in the prayer room, I’m not to
tell anyone. I’m to walk as if my hands were

stained, dripping. Mother said it like I should’ve known
all along. When mother gets angry, she starts

counting. My earlobes turn red,
rubber between her fingers.

She had no answer for why god
only spoke when it rained, but

when her shoulders tense,
she sets out buckets, keeping her ear

to the window. She said the rain comes to you
first in your bones. Then, quieter, when

the baby hairs on your neck begin to rise.

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Teja Sudhakar is a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. A native of Chennai, India, and long-time resident of Lexington, Kentucky, their work explores queer and immigrant narratives of the transnational South. Teja’s work has been published with The Academy of American Poets, Georgia Review, Salt Hill Journal and others. They live and write in Riverwest, Milwaukee with their cat, Soup.