Content Warning: blood, menstruation

Cup 3: 'blood' - this is a photograph taken of a scene I arranged using a background with text added

Wendy Allen – Exhibit

The blood on the made to look Victorian floor tiles is too thick for (four ply) tissue. If I had stabbed my finger and bled this much, I’d be in Accident and Emergency by now. Instead, I am on hands and knees cleaning up the spillage of my menstrual cup. I’m at the exact gradient of the mathematics of low ache of stomach pain and bear down into a contraction style kneeling pose on the tiles which up close - too close - don’t look Victorian at all.

Best viewed on desktop, please also find a PDF file available to download here.

Wendy Allen has been published in The Moth, Ambit, Poetry Wales and Propel and is forthcoming in The North and Banshee. Her first pamphlet, Plastic Tubed Little Bird, will be published in May 2023 by Broken Sleep.

Artwork: Cup 3: 'blood' by Laura Warner

Laura Warner (she/her) is a poet and PhD researcher at the University of Exeter. Her project, Menstrual Poetics, uses poetry to explore the impact of menstrual politics on lived experience of the condition endometriosis. Her work has appeared in Poetry Wales, Streetcake Magazine, Tangled Locks Journal, and Lucy Writers Platform.
Twitter: @warner_writer @MenstrualPoetic