W. M. Gee is a writer who specialises in teen, horror, fantasy and sci-fi stories. His works often explore real world problems from adolescent perspectives, because — hey — we’ve all been there, right? In his free time, he loves writing poetry, reading sci-fi and painting minis. In 2021 he was awarded the people’s choice Golden Comma Award for his teen novella, "The List."  He published his first teen-horror novella (ebook and print), "The Woodcutter's Daughter" in 2023. He lives in London but longs to own a lighthouse and listen to the sounds of the sea. 

Read more by W.M. Gee right HERE.

HE BLEEDS

by

W.M. Gee

The hard-nibbed pen scratches out again along the soft, white card, leaving my flow writ-large within its wake. I want him to understand, when first he reads my note, to take away firsthand and know the fear by rote and feelings he decried in me. He must know why. And comprehend the fullness of his crimes, while I hang back and watch and move my lips with rhymes. 

The message bleeds with each new cutting of my pen as he will bleed. Again. And again. The feeling will be no doubt strange to him, I know; but I made letting out my blood my kin some time ago. 

I stand, secreted and sanguine, at the bounds of that large band of party guests — his friends. And silent judges, likely, at the ends. Everyone has come; even those who were not put upon. His sweet sixteen unsoured yet by truth that malice often hides among the words so freely cried by herds of youth. 

He has not seen me yet. Has not met the bitterness within. But his gaze draws downwards to the gift that I have wrapped for him. Yes, yes — reach for it, breach the whiteness of its silky string. The perfect mate for those white pants you wear, bedecked with ivory streaking. Open up the box and consummate the justice I am seeking. 

He puts the card aside and takes the gift. Later he will read it, later he will see and sift the truth of what is spelt; now, he only feels. Feels what I have felt. 

Dear Flynn,

You called me crazy when I asked you to the club to dance. When, hopeful, I unburdened burgeoning romance. 

“Why are you so weird?” you hailed. And, “Why you wear that pointy hat?”

Oh, my dear. Perhaps your mind is just too blind to see: perhaps the hat wears me and we together wear the skin of every woman, every girl that’s ever been. 

But he is feeling different. It begins.  A pulsing somewhere deep within his abdomen. The thump and pound of tiny fists, inside, around, in places that cannot be found. The aching round his spine, between his thighs, the sign that comes before the twisting torsion. The rational portion of his mind races to explain away (and save the fraying of his wayward brain): it’s a stomach ache, it’s something bad I ate, a muscle pulled when sitting up five hundred times each morning. The hard-avoided dawning of the real; anything but what it is, for that could never be. He wraps himself amidst the comforting cloak of masculinity. 

Until he feels the blood begin to seep…

You called me cutter and shared such fancies with the class about my scars. 

“She’s just a slut still letting out the shame of her backstreet abortion…”

Oh, sweet refrain; your heart’s blood is not the only stain apportioned, not the only smear that that will remain with you. Hopefully your little letting here will let you see more clearly now, my dear. 

Things feel different. Down there. An itching. A wetness. Not a flowing but a growing ooze, thick slime that slips and slithers and seeps and sticks to cloth. You wonder how to pry your swollen, tender flesh away. And if you’ll make it to the shower before they see: your guests. It’s then your eyes meet me and rest upon my glower. 

Your shorts are wet, beneath the whiteness of your pants. And as the punching of those tiny fists inside grows claws and tears and rips and rends, the last defenses of your mind give way. You try to move, poor wretch; the twisting of your abdomen just angers all that taut and stretched out tension. You must stay still and yet I know — as summer’s summoned pollen scratches at your nose — that worse is waiting down below. 

You called me immigrant and cursed me for my muddled-blood. 

“If we cut you,” you declared, with Simon Fredericks, Greg Dumbarton — they’ll get theirs — “will brown pour out like gravy?”

And you grinned. Even as you told me: “Go back home!” The braying of the bigoted mindset. But you forget: gone far back enough we all ascend from Africa. And my family has lived through fire and mankind’s fear round here for eons, my 'éyónį́.

The pollen does its trick. And with each sneeze what once but flowed explodes. The pain is worse, but much worse still, the fear. What if the cramping never ceases? What if there’s nothing that will staunch your blood’s releases. What if people see — as more and more guests pour through every door — how will I explain what’s happening to me?


You called me weak, my would-be love and mocked the monthly wringing of my womb.

“It’s only a little period,” you called out. “It’s only a little blood. And what’s blood for, if not for letting?”

Oh man, how sweet such candy words grow saccharine and saturnine your sweet sixteen. 

But do not fret, my never-love. As the crimson stain of my disdain grows wet and flowers at your nethers and fear gives way at last to shame. At last you know my sex’s monthly woe. Do not cry, big boy now grown so small. Do not weep, dry up those tears. It’s just a little period. Ten days a month. For forty years… 

I did not sign the card in words or blood for who am I to sign for all of womanhood gone by? I rather wrapped my little rhyme and let my lips conclude the feeding of Flynn’s newfound monthly bleeding. A rich and dark and satisfying telling. 

For what are words, if not for spelling?