The last time I bled, you were alive.
When we got the news, my body, paralyzed by loss, stopped mid-cycle. When they took you away five days later, things continued where they’d left off, as though my body had simply pressed pause.
Almost exactly a month later now, I bleed again.
I felt the shock of it when I discovered. Time is cruel, I thought. I felt betrayed by my own biology.
How can it be that while I’ve been barely alive as I try to imagine this world without you, my body has just been going on like nothing is wrong? Preparing for the future, making adjustments? Ovulating?
The world continues on. People buy groceries. The freeways are crowded. I go to work.
Even my body is moving into the future.
But I’m not.
small life, slow life 