Tzynya Pinchback
MENARCHE
The summer I turned thirteen. The summer before eighth grade. The summer I learned to climb a tree, launch from the neighbor’s not-up-to-code brick privacy fence, and tuck my body into itself, drop cannonball style into our swimming pool. The summer I limped home – salve of gravel and mud pressing closed the crevasse sliced into the back of my upper right thigh – after jumping a chain link fence racing my brother to the library. The summer I was bridesmaid in Uncle Michael’s wedding, when we lost the house and moved from Los Angeles to Carpentersville, IL for the fall semester, I called for my mother.
She was downstairs at the reception. I was in the hall bathroom practicing one foot turns in the full-length mirror when I saw the spot on the back of my skirt. I had been twirling in the fuchsia and turquoise color block dress all day. Barely able to stand still during the vows. Twisting at the waist, Aunt Shirley’s bouquet in my hand. One foot in front of the other so the ruffled hem bounced off the back of my knees with each step. When I saw that spot on the back of my skirt, I collapsed onto the bathroom floor. I called for my mother.
The summer I traded tutus and toe shoes for leg warmers and Capezio jazz shoes like the ones Debbie Allen kicked high above her own head in the movie Fame. Kept pace with my boy cousins, beat Marlon Dobin’s high score in Ms. Pac-Man on our first date (if dating was allowed before age 16) to the Tropicana Lanes bowling alley and arcade.
My mother took one look at me, on the floor, bridesmaid’s gown gathered in my arms displaying a smear of blush pink, said, I’ll be right back, and returned with my two aunts – one pregnant, the other just married – in tow. I’ve been carrying this around a whole year, she said, handing me a plastic pouch holding maxi pads, a clean pair of panties, and a card—her handwritten note inside.
On the white linoleum floor, my tulle dress and shedding body a makeshift cauldron these three women danced around. Each one repainting the day of their first period, their mothers now gone. My mother crying. My mother laughing. The aunts in unison, sing, everything now is before and after, everything now is before and after. Something wild in us all.
Tzynya Pinchback’s poems appear in various print and online publications. She is the 2025 Writing the Land poet-in-residence at D.W. Field Park, and a 2024 PEN America Emerging Voices fellow. Her chapbook, How to make pink confetti, was selected for the Dancing Girl Press reading series for women poets.