Visible

The blood came without asking first.

I was standing in line at the pharmacy

holding a prescription I couldn't afford

and my nose just decided

to betray me.

I felt it before I saw it—

that warm drip, that certainty,

blood on my upper lip like a confession.

A woman next to me stepped away.

Just one step. But I saw it.

I pressed the receipt against my face.

The paper soaked through immediately.

Red blooming on white.

"You okay?" someone asked.

The kind of question people ask

when they're hoping you're not.

I tilted my head back the way you're not supposed to.

The way my mother told me never to do.

But I was eleven again, terrified,

and there were strangers watching.

There's nowhere to hide

when you're bleeding in public.

No way to be casual about it.

No way to pretend this isn't happening

while someone counts their change

and another person pretends not to notice.

The pharmacist handed me tissues.

Finally.

Like I was a problem that needed solving.

I went to the bathroom.

Cleaned my shirt in the sink.

Watched pink water circle the drain.

By the time I came back out,

everyone had moved on.

Nobody was thinking about me anymore.

But I was still thinking about it.

About how exposed I'd been.

About the way that woman stepped away.

About how my body had made a decision

without consulting me first.