34 Symptoms of the Menopause
 
A woman somewhere is typing on the internet
            my heart wakes me up like clockwork.
Now, another woman –
            my whole body feels like a bee box too small for the bees.

At 3am, a woman Googles     burning tongue
another woman searches
                        cortisol, dying ovaries, blood sugar,
                                    light sensitivity, vampirism, migraine.

On a message board a woman writes
            Does anyone else . . .   
another woman is typing
            . . . yes, I can’t leave the house I’m stone tired,
                                                my underwear is sack cloth.

A woman reads about rage
feels parts of her
skitter under the wardrobe.
Everything in the pantry wants to hurt me;
                        sugar is hex, coffee is a bad abracadabra.

A woman, unbidden, pictures the dress
burnt with an iron when she was nineteen;
irredeemable she writes.
I sobbed right there, in the bank.
 
Is it normal, a woman asks the women
            is it normal to stand in a line-up of yourself
                        and not recognise you at all?
Is it normal to be scared of driving, the washing machine, scales?
Is it normal to wake up in a bread oven night after night;
            to flush blood away like you have emergency stores;
                                                for words to fall from your left hemisphere?
 
And all the women on the internet
faces blazing in the blue light of their screens, say
 
yes, this is normal
we are here
we can hear you now.            

Helen Ivory is a poet and visual who makes collage and shadowboxes. She was awarded a Cholmondeley Award by the Society of Authors in 2024.  She teaches for Arvon. Constructing a Witch (October 2024)  her sixth collection with Bloodaxe Books, is a PBS Winter Recommendation. She is one of Norwich Arts Centre’s  Tilted Women.  This poem is published in Constructing a Witch.

Note: The theme for International Women’s Day 2025 is ‘Accelerate Action.’  The menopause is a very sharp learning curve – most women only learn about it when they are going through it.  It’s still one of those taboo subjects yet according to NHS England there are thirteen million people who are currently peri or menopausal right now.  So let’s talk about it! This poem goes  out to all of the women reaching out to each other on social media and in internet chatrooms about everything they are going through when their bodies, and too often their own heads feel like strangers to them.