Friend, merely speaking the word feminine made me feel awful. I truly believe there needs to be a more inclusive way of marketing these products. Not to mention that, aside from men like myself, I’m persuaded not every woman enjoys being greeted with bright pink flowers, in general, when they feel like they are literally bleeding to death. I know Eve doesn’t like it either, she has complained about it before—and Gods, she is one of the most feminine women I know!

I’ve no doubt people like me would not be the only ones benefiting from such changes. I often want to say, to the ones in charge of designing brands for these packages: Give us dark colors! Make us feel like cool warriors! Don’t cover up something so intense and painful with little, happy swirls and rainbows.

It is like there is a general shame with what is going on with our bodies—a need to hide, and censor it behind all that glitter—despite the fact that without periods, none of us would exist.

Now, friend, you’re probably wondering what happened for me to be so open about this, and less ashamed. Or… well, I suppose you aren’t, since you don’t exist, but I digress—after looking at my body in a different light, I realized it was… slightly cool? Granted, I still wish I was shaped differently most days. Even so… it is still fascinating to know that I would be able to create life from almost nothing?

Do not get me wrong, I absolutely do not want to try it—Gods, no, even thinking about being pregnant makes me feel very anxious and stressed out—however, what I am trying to get at here, is that, objectively speaking, I don’t understand anymore, why being able to grow a living being from scratch is considered feminine. There are some males in nature (seahorses!) who carry their young; in my opinion, we have labelled this act as feminine, but it does not have to be.

So… yes, whenever I’m feeling down, I think of the seahorses, friend. And how neat it is that I can merely… make life, if I wanted to. And I feel a little less terrible, then, about the awkward times I must go through. And a little more masculine, too.

When David returned with my necessary war-gear for the day (after he had argued with me that, he truly did not care about going to fetch them, regardless of where they were placed in the store), I took a quick shower.

Thankfully, I was feeling a tad better when I got changed, then crawled back up into bed next to my lover. “They did not give you weird looks?” I muttered, as I closed my eyes.

David chuckled. He held me closer. He left a kiss against my forehead.

I was still hurting, yet, I was surrounded by warmth, friend, and it made the pain much more bearable.

“They definitely stared,” he told me. “But, honestly, what do they know?” David shrugged. “I could have a vagina. It could have been for me. That’s none of their business.”

I wrapped my arms around him and kissed his lips. “I love you, angel,” I whispered. “You’re always so good to me.”

He nuzzled my nose with his own. “Hey, that’s my line—” David laughed again. He brushed the hair out of my eyes; his palm came to linger against my jaw.

My lover’s smile was contagious.

“I’m glad we’re better,” he said.

And I could do nothing but agree, as I leaned into him once more, and listened to the sound of the television, playing faintly in the background—honestly, we should have probably turned off the movie we’d put on; I knew I would not be watching it the moment David stepped back into our bedroom, for the man before me was much more interesting than anything else that could have been happening on that screen. “Me too,” I told him.

I reached for his hipbone, then thumbed at it, softly.

David’s breaths hitched. “N-now?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Unless you want to?”