Bloodroot

The fibrous roots leak red, staining everything. The boys make crude comments about how it has its period but they don't know that blood is salt, flesh, bone. It's a plant that bleeds like me. The bell rings and I send them back to the smell of the earth, a dusty nothingness. A light spring snow dusts the yellow school buses lining up along the curb. The lights, also red, flash a warning to go slow, to pay attention, to not cross over into the light of early afternoon. I sit in a cold seat up front to avoid the rowdy boys piling into the aisle and tripping over their claws and teeth. They race and stomp and crash into the backseats. The snow is really picking up now, fat flakes blinding the driver, windshield wipers spastic against the glass. I am unmoving. I clench my book with the bloodroot from science class flattened between the pages. I press the edge into my womb like a sacrifice. The boys crumple up pop quizzes and toss them at my head. But I let the balls of paper land at my melting feet. They flick off the cars and spit on each other. They toss around a Playboy and call each other pussy. I feel my pulse accelerate, my face turn stoplight red. A primal scent lingers to the front of the bus as the driver slams on the brakes. The bus skids left, the rear end smashing into the trees. The clunk of orange metal sits horizontal across the country road. Everything stops. Everything is quiet. The windows are open and the cold wind — and the blood, more blood — washes the interior of the bus with a hiss. I go home in my dad's car and hide away in my pink bedroom. My mother gives me a pad. “Of all days. Do you know what to do?” she says. And I do. I will paint the walls black. I will breed carnivorous plants. I will drink coffee and walk in the rain. I will read Poe and light candles. I will visit cemeteries and go for the throat, their names etched in cold stone beneath my fingertips.