The Changing Tide of Womanhood

I am tired,
a bone-deep tired
that sleep does not touch.
Anxious in a way
that has no clear source or reason,
lonely even when
I am not alone.

My mind is fogged,
thoughts drifting like mist
I can’t quite part.
Words slip away.
Certainty dissolves.
Madness descends.

Then the rage arrives,
wild,
hot,
sudden,
and heavy,
as if something immense
has been dropped from above
and landed squarely
in my chest.

My body aches
in unfamiliar places.
Tears gather,
urgent, insistent,
desperate to fall.
But they won’t. They just won’t.
They hover instead,
burning behind my eyes,
unshed and unresolved.

My sleep fractures, broken
pieces scattered through the night.
My appetite moves like the tide,
pulling in,
pulling away,
never steady,
never predictable.

I am sad.
I am confused.
I am still.
I am despairing,
and a drift amid this chaos.

I grieve versions of myself
I didn’t know
I was already losing.
I search for the ground
in a body
rewriting its own rules.

But this is not a weakness.
It is a testament to resilience.
This transition teaches
strength,
even when faced with uncertainty.
This is a threshold
no one prepared me for.

This is perimenopause,
It is raw,
heartbreaking,
relentless,
and too often unnamed.

It is carried quietly by women
expected to endure
it without pause.
Yet, we are not truly alone.
Many women tread this path too.

And I am still here,
even when I don’t feel like myself.
Even when everything feels unfamiliar.
I am still here,
learning how to survive
this new version of becoming.
And I know there is more to come.

Poem by

Siân Williams