The Mattress Is Mine Now, Daniel

I bled on your sheets and now I own the bed.

He saw the blood and looked at me like I’d taken a shit in the shape of his nan. Calm down, Daniel. It’s not a crime scene. You think a little uterine confetti makes me less attractive? I once saw your shower grout. I’ve met your pillows. I’ve seen your boxers. You are not the standard of cleanliness. You use a 3-in-1 body-hair-face gel and think “feminine hygiene” is a personality disorder. I don’t care if it stained your sheets. I’ve stained your mind. That bed belongs to me now. I don’t need squatters’ rights. I have ovulation.

Let’s get this out of the way: periods aren’t dirty. They’re not unclean, unholy, unsanitary, unladylike, or any other “un” you conjured while Googling “how to tell her it’s gross without dying.” What is dirty is the fact that 1.2 billion people globally lack access to safe menstrual hygiene. What is unholy is the tampon tax. What is unladylike is your reaction to something my body does better than your Wi-Fi signal. If blood disturbs you so deeply:

• Stop watching boxing. That’s just recreational bloodlust.

• Stop eating steak. That’s just a grilled period with rosemary.

• Stop crying over football. You don’t get to weep over a missed penalty if you can’t handle a clot the size of a grape.

Let me be even clearer. If you think bleeding is disgusting, but:

• You’ve raw-dogged a kebab at 3am

• You’ve licked your fingers after Wetherspoons wings

• You’ve been inside a woman without washing your hands post-Nando’s

• You’ve called women “mood swings”

• You’ve used a crusty towel more than twice

• And you’ve never changed your sheets without being asked

…then the only thing unsanitary in that bed is you.

Historically, society has treated periods like biblical plagues. In Ancient Rome, they thought period blood could kill crops. In medieval medicine, menstruation was considered a demonic purge. In the 1800s, women were told they couldn’t read too much while bleeding in case it redirected blood from their uterus to their brain and made them insane. Imagine surviving smallpox only to die because someone thought your womb had a GPS. Even in 2024, some cultures still exile menstruating women to “bleeding huts” as if we’re radioactive. We’re not. We’re just busy regenerating the lining of a literal organ. What have you done today?

If men had periods, the world would be unrecognisable. There’d be national bleed-leave. Spotify would make Crampwave playlists. The army would hand out Dignitas-level painkillers and call it “Operation Man Flow.” You’d get a little badge after your first gush and your name engraved on a pub stool after surviving your third. There’d be men’s rights protests outside Boots if the supermarket ran out of extra-long pads. Instead, we get tampon adverts with blue liquid and whispered shame. Not even blood. Just a vague minty rinse like we’re leaking Listerine. Enough.

Let’s talk about the stain. The moment. The biblical red patch that sent him spiralling. He pulled back the duvet and acted like I’d murdered a lamb. Babe, it’s not satanic. It’s cyclical. That wasn’t an accident. That was a message. I bled there and you should be honoured. You think it’s gross? You’ve ejaculated into the same sock for three years and still use it as a foot rag. You’ve sat in your own skid marks with less shame. I bled a little. You shat yourself in Zante and called it a funny story.

The reason periods seem shocking is because we’ve been sold silence. Wrapped in plastic. Hidden up sleeves. Whispered in school toilets like criminal deals. The industry wants us ashamed. Wants us dainty and odourless and apologetic. Period products are designed to feel like secrets. “Ultra discreet.” “Invisible.” “Barely there.” No. I am not barely anything. I am a blood witch in a serotonin drought. I am fighting gravity with cotton artillery. I am bleeding and still functioning. That’s not gross. That’s godlike.

So no, I won’t apologise for bleeding on your mattress. I’m not sorry I turned your Calvin Klein duvet into a Rothko painting. I’m not sorry you flinched like I’d poured acid. If you can’t handle a bit of uterine realism, you’re not ready for intimacy. Blood is life. Blood is power. Blood is rent. And I paid in full. You don’t get to flinch at the thing that makes all life possible and still ask for head. If my period disgusts you, your mum failed.