PERIOD PLAYLIST

AMENA BROWN

MY MOM HAD THREE BASIC rules when we left her house to go anywhere: “Don’t touch nothing. Don’t break nothing. Do not embarrass me.” She’d usually say this through gritted teeth, then smile at whoever passed us in the store or whoever greeted us at someone else’s home. I would stick my arms to my sides as if they were glued there while we walked through the store, or sit as if my hands were stapled to my lap at the home of my mom’s friends, beginning to believe that embarrassment was a spill that could never be cleaned up.

The first time my mom explained the biology of my period, I was nine years old, staring at the green tile of my grandmother’s bathroom. With my mom’s knowledge as a nurse, she took a scientific approach, describing to me the journey of red and white blood cells and what would happen to them when they shed. She told me what sounded like the science fiction story of a uterus caterpillar who shed her skin, bled, became a butterfly, and planned to transform me into a woman. Every month. It sounded dangerous, weird, painful, and like nothing I should look forward to.

When I started my period at age fourteen, it was clear having a period was like so many things I was implicitly told about being a woman: be quiet, be strong, keep up appearances. I had been taught to hide my period, to not talk about my period, to do my best to act like I wasn’t on my period, to pretend away any pain caused by my period. I had been taught to equate my period with shame—shame for being a woman, for having feelings, for feeling even the slightest bit of anger or frustration. I had been taught to see my period as an embarrassment, as a nuisance, as a negative thing.

So I decided to start giving my period the talk.

Don’t touch nothing.

Don’t break nothing.

Do not embarrass me.

But apparently, periods are not good listeners. At some point in my monthly life there will be cramps, headaches, backaches, moodiness, and fatigue. There will be blood. There will be trips to the bathroom that feel like a crime scene. There will be decisions about tampons or pads or cups, about light, thin, wings, super-absorbent, overnight. I will see these categories and wonder if I am preparing for my period or packing luggage for a trip on a plane and deciding which bags to check.

There will be the times my period decides to surprise me and there are no tampons, pads, cups, wings, carry-ons, personal bags, panty liners, or ocean liners, and I will have to become a quick inventor, a period MacGyver, fashioning a period product out of three paper towels, six squares of bathroom tissue, two Band-Aids, and a prayer. There will be the outfits ruined by my period, the resuscitation I tried on my favorite pants hoping they would survive the bloodstain. How I stood pantsless in a hotel bathroom and transformed into a scientist, Googling the concoction that could remove blood from houndstooth pants, finding out that I must blot, pat, apply cold water, and rub together, but not sure if I should do this to the pants or my thighs or both. Many of my favorite pairs of underwear have been lost as casualties: even after being scrubbed to oblivion, they could not be saved or rescued and instead had to be mourned and then thrown away.

My period requires a certain type of underwear artillery: the granny panty, the full coverage, the time-of-the-month drawers, the kind of underwear that nearly comes up to my belly button and covers my whole backside, rumpus, ba-donk-a-donk-donk. Thank you, Missy Elliott. This means all other types of underwear, including parachutes, zip lines, cheekies, and G-strings, are reserved for the rest of the month.

I have learned not to waste cute, fashionable panties on my period. During that week, my vagina has other things to be concerned about and lace sliding into my crevasses is not one of them.

I have panicked in a bathroom at someone else’s home about the lack of bathroom tissue and an empty open trash can, wondering how I am supposed to make my discarded period products look like normal trash. I have wrapped them up in bathroom tissue until they are mummified enough to possibly be confused for a random time someone else needed to practice the art of origami with bathroom tissue only to throw it away.

People with periods are maligned and marginalized for being too emotional, too hormonal, too affected by the sway of our cycles, when in actuality we continue to work in politics, run companies, boss up, parent, breathe, make art, make decisions, show up to work, and show up for our families and friends, all while managing minor to major pain and discomfort every month or so. Then when we speak up for ourselves, assert our thoughts and opinions, say no, or boldly raise our voices, we are suspected and proven guilty of being a bitch and probably being on our periods.

My friends and I talked openly about our periods, the symptoms we experienced, the period mishaps we knew all too well. Some of my girlfriends who had become mothers shared how they were approaching the period talk with their daughters. They told us how they were encouraging their daughters to remember that help for a period mishap was as close as the woman next to you.

I thought about all the times I’d dished about period cramps with a woman I was meeting for the first time, or the times I’d reached into some forgotten nook in my purse to retrieve a period product I’d forgotten I had so I could help a woman I’d just met in a public bathroom. Having a period means being a part of a community where we are not alone, where our periods can transform from a place of embarrassment to a place of empowerment.

My period didn’t deserve the talk I’d been giving it. Everything I said or thought about my period affected the way I spoke or thought about myself. I needed to develop a new talk for myself. As a woman. As a Black woman. As an artist. I needed to set different expectations for myself and my body.

So I decided to stop being mean to my period and to myself. My period is not a place for shame. My period isn’t a nuisance. I discovered that maybe my period is actually a place to be reminded that I am empowered. My period is a motivational speaker with a story to tell. So I did what I usually do when I want to feel motivated: I made a playlist for my period.

I received my first mixtape when I was in high school. My friend had commandeered a blank tape that belonged to his parents, painted Wite-Out over the label, and wrote on top of it “The Fugees, The Score.” I didn’t know I’d fall in love with the power a repurposed cassette tape could have. How it could tell someone you loved them or how much you loved a new band or how excited you were to have a new friend. I recorded songs off of the radio, trying my best to press stop before the deejay started to talk. My friends and I passed cassettes between us like notes during class.

By the time I went to college, cassettes had been replaced by CDs. I learned my computer had the power to burn a CD of songs I loved, so I made mix CDs. My younger sister introduced me to Lupe Fiasco on a purple CD she burned for me. I made mix CDs for my car and as birthday gifts. I made mix CDs of love songs even when I was afraid to tell the object of my affection I was falling in love with them.

When my husband and I first started dating, I created my last mix CD. I could no longer hide my deep and giddy feelings for him when I not only made him a mix CD of songs that reminded me of him but took the time to type explanations for each one. Eventually CDs were replaced by iPods and MP3 players, and those were replaced by smartphones. I discovered I could show my mixtape love through making playlists.

I make playlists for everything that’s important to me: for when I feel insecure, for when I want to celebrate, for when I’m getting ready for a show, for when I work out, for when I need to muster up all of my woman confidence. So yes, my period deserved a playlist too.

My period playlist begins with rapper Bone Crusher’s hit “Never Scared.” Accompanied by a rumbling synthesizer and a banging drum kit, Bone Crusher pontificates about how someone outside of the club has mistaken him for someone who should be messed with. How he has certain “tools” in his trunk that can be used to assuage any doubts harbored by this passerby.

My period brain is a Bone Crusher concert, my eye twitching at the thought that anyone might test me, question me, or any way disrespect me. I am yelling “I AIN’T NEVER SCARED” everywhere I go, from the grocery store to the bank, in a work meeting and at a family gathering.

Bone Crusher probably has no idea that he not only created the perfect period theme song but also crafted an accurate music video to go with it. In this video, Bone Crusher becomes a giant, traipsing through Atlanta’s highways and byways, causing Godzilla-sized trouble while shouting the names of the various sides of town he is apparently unafraid of. It appears he even takes the time to play hopscotch on one of the city’s busy streets, causing mayhem and not apologizing for it. The curls from his Afro are moving to their own beat as he and his squad yell “never scared” while giant Bone Crusher crushes cars and buildings with his sneakers like so many Tic Tacs underfoot. ATTENCHUN.

Rapper Killer Mike, who is featured on the song, describes his weapon of choice in said “never scared” situations as a gun that has permanent PMS. Maybe they did know they were making a period theme song?

As Bone Crusher’s hands decide the best thing for them to do is randomly grab at a whole story of windows on a skyscraper, I ponder my own period-motivated actions. Bone Crusher, I too have what feels like a Heavy Chevy pounding through my abdomen.

Next on my period playlist is LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.” I hear Sly and the Family Stone singing and I hear LL Cool J rapping lines that my period knows all too well. LL Cool J is ready for a fight and my period is too. My period knows what it’s like to call it a comeback. My period has been here for years. I am also crying tears like a monsoon. If my period’s name is Mama, she intends to knock anyone and everyone out in the process, including me.

LL Cool J begins this video with a hoodie over his head in the corner of a boxing ring. Why yes, LL, how did you know this is exactly how my period starts? Yes, LL, I too have wanted to knock someone out. I too have wished for a microphone to drop down from the ceiling toward the random boxing ring in which I find myself so that I can yell all manner of threats and obscenities to anyone who would dare try me. And when LL yells “damage” and “destruction,” I have never felt more seen.

When I have period rage, I listen to Beyoncé’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself” and Cardi B’s “Bodak Yellow.” When I need a good period cry, I listen to Kelly Clarkson’s “Breakaway” and Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic.” Sometimes my period is a heavy metal rager, sometimes it’s a raucous hip-hop show, and sometimes it is a Lilith Fair mess of feelings. My period playlist is full of songs that help me celebrate my rage and affirm the badassness of my womanhood.

When I listen to these songs, I remember periods are complicated. Some of us never get a period. Some of us have feared the months our period arrived late or didn’t arrive at all. Some of us can’t afford or don’t have access to period products. Some of us have longed for the moment our period’s tardy arrival would produce a positive pregnancy test, but each month our period arrives on time. Some of our periods bring us an immeasurable amount of pain. Some of our periods remind us that our biology is betraying our gender identity.

As I learn to accept my period, I’m learning to accept myself. As I am. Complications and all.

Now I know: my period is fearless. She arrives without being concerned about what anyone thinks of her. She takes up her space with no apology. She decides to be heavy or light based on her own whims, not to impress anyone.

She’s nosy. She asserts herself in my personal life, speaking truth to me like a good friend should. She convinces me that sleep is the best use of my time. She yells at me that I deserve better! She hypes me up until I demand fair pay, assume that every donut is my soul mate, and stop wasting time on things and people that drain me. My period is a truth detector, a special kind of polygraph. She pushes me to be honest when I don’t like something, to speak up when I’m irritated, to leave when I’m no longer having a good time—at a party, in an outfit, or in a relationship.

Each time my period shows up, she reminds me to be gentle, honest, bold, and brave—to honor her as I honor myself. Because my period is me. She says the things I really think. She reminds me to be my full self always. And that is a rhythm worth listening to.