The night I start my period, I dream of Molly
and how often I watched her
face flush, the way she sat
in the park, her cheeks blotched
like a burst handful
of cranberries. I was young then
and unknown, svelte shadow, faceless
and swinging around the metal bar
of the bus stop. She fed me
yogurt-covered fruit, spun biro-blue
tattoos around my arms. Her home,
one time, was my home.
She had that big-girl energy;
big-girl clothes. It made her exemplary
and pristine. When I told her so
she seemed pleased.
She did blush first
with a fluffy-headed brush.
As she painted me I felt clownish
and beautiful, suddenly coloured with her
girlish, unselfish attention.
She leant over my face
to smear petroleum rouge
against my lips.
Optionless, I felt: her
eczema-wet fingers, the waxy
steroid cream that clung
to her summer polo shirt.
The first time I became a girl was alone
in her room, finding myself
dropped in it as she scrubbed
blusher from her hands.
The lamplight was gemmy, wobbling
against her duvet, lingering
in the sickle stains that smeared
the fuchsia cover. It was hard
not to curl beneath her bed
and stay, undiscovered.
In the dark I pick Sudocrem
from my bedside
and inhale.
Caitlin Tina Jones is an emerging poet from Hengoed, South Wales. Her poems have been published by The Poetry Society’s Young Poets Network, Poetry Wales, and Propel. Her poems have also featured in various anthologies, including HE/SHE/THEY/US: Queer Poems (Pan Macmillan) and Beyond/Tu Hwnt – Anthology of Welsh D/deaf and Disabled Writers (Lucent Dreaming). She was selected by Literature Wales for their inaugural Rewriting the Protagonist cohort, a course which centres experienced disabled Welsh writers. She is currently working with Edge Hill University as a Lived Experience Consultant on Arts4Us, a £2.5m research project using creative solutions to alleviate stress from children and young adults with mental health struggles.