Jesus Freak by Laura Mullan

As part of EWF X Hate Mail (2026)

“If she wasn’t an atheist, she would thank god for her period arriving every 28 days. Not a day earlier or later. This made her realise who she was as a person”.

I WANT TO KILL HIM. MURDER HIM. MAKE IT KNOWN THAT I KILLED HIM. MAKE HIM PAY FOR NOT GETTING ME PREGNANT. MAKE HIM PAY FOR MY MONTHLY BLEED FOR NOTHING. FOR A BABY I DON’T WANT. 

It's the week of my period and his hands are all over me, my own personal heat pack. I am small, quite small, curled in fetal position like a baby, the baby I don't want. Yesterday, I was convinced that I was pregnant. Late for four days; sex everyday, three or four times a day. Unprotected, but seen by one of his most attractive traits: not wanting a child. 

Sex was not to be mentioned in my house growing up and if it was, silent daggers would charge your way. We weren’t religious or anything like that; I guess my parents liked the purity of the Australian dream, yuppie in the inner-eastern suburbs with three kids and a white weatherboard house. The illusion of religion by attending a prestigious all girls catholic school really fucked me. I began praying to god. I proposed that he take away one bad thought and in return, I would give something up - my favourite pair of jeans to stop the heater blowing up and destroying my house; the birthday present I got from my cousin that made me think I was grooming her. My boyfriend, if he could just make sure the front door was actually locked when I locked it. 

Worse, you would want him to take away the urge to explore. Tie you to the bed and punish you for killing a kid on a bike while you were driving (you were 14). You are sick, sick. Bed without dinner, duvet between legs and just the one pillow underneath your head. You've learnt to suppress sex just as you have food and now you have no period or hunger to complain about anymore. 

I remember going to the nurse’s office a lot during school. I am sure people talked about it - what's wrong with her? “She’s so fat that she has to go to the nurse to get weighed every lunch.” "No, I heard that she needs a nap because she doesn't sleep at night, she’s just eating”. “No, you're both wrong, she was the one who burned down the food tech room making a chocolate cake”. 

I always figured that the nurse thought I was faking it, giving me sugar lollies instead of naprogesic just to see if I would come back 30 minutes later asking for something harder. She would never let me go home, a pact with my mother that I would feel better before lunchtime. My mother didn’t quite understand that this pain was my one ‘out’ of avoiding girls who thought I was the ugliest and fattest bitch in the cohort. I had 15 screws hammered into my uterus and was 20 metres deep in my own blood if anyone cared.

Now, medicated, eating and getting eaten, I know for a fact that my boyfriend won’t dare to get me pregnant, but for those 13 weeks of the year, a period I meticulously carry and sink up with my closest friends, anticipating a period every 28 days, always comes late. So I hate him and I hate him more than I can ever believe. And it's not because of his callowness and how it’s charmed with his need to please me, because I do whisper in his ear to get me pregnant, make me full of you. It's juvenile and it’s straight up bonkers but you refuse the exit. It’s because when he does, you pray to god that you will have your period every month for the rest of your life if he would just not let you get pregnant. 

And then you get your period after all of the rumination, the fear of your brain playing tricks on you, the fear of being pregnant is over for the month, my punishment is every bad thought I have had since raising my serotonin being able to speak their truth.

Fuck you Tom for not just getting me pregnant.