How to Remove a Lost Tampon

Sometimes—it happens—you might lose a tampon in your vagina and not even know it until the evidence beseeches you. No one wants to talk about it. If you’re borderline transgender like I am, you’d much rather talk about the devotional pilgrims paying tribute to the Virgin by traveling to the Basílica de Santa María de Guadalupe, which was built at the Virgin’s request when she appeared, in 1531, to an Aztec man named Juan Diego. It’s December 12, 2018, and I’m in an Uber on my way to the Mexico City airport, from which I will fly to Oaxaca. “Something is wrong,” I say out loud to my companion, as we stare out the window at the faithful walking along the roadside, part of a crowd of several million who are traveling on this day by foot, bicycle, or bus to honor the possibility of a miracle. Meanwhile, a pallid dampness has taken occupation on my face, and what was once a dull ache in my abdomen has morphed into a wooden spooning, a digging down into a lower left place the size of a quarter. My attention draws inward, to the micro-actions of my body. Some pilgrims, the Uber driver tells us, have been walking for a month. They do it, he says, out of love, and gratitude, and faith. I notice one man wearing plastic sandals so deteriorated that it appears as if the straps might rip off with each step. I notice a woman in gray sweatpants and Adidas sneakers with a giant framed portrait of the Virgin hanging from her neck and draped awkwardly down her back. She has decorated the frame with red, green, and silver garlands and cut-out stars. Underneath the Virgin’s gowned feet, she’s written “Protégenos,” or “Protect Us.” 

Our interior lives are so invisible to others. How inaccessible the most profound feeling or experience can be to the person sitting right next to you. I cannot enter the shells of the pilgrims. Their skins alert with the dignity of devotion, they lean toward the cathedral in these last few miles. Meanwhile, the tampon is my little secret. I feel its fugitive presence. It’s there, it’s there. I know it is. Is one unprotected when one lacks faith? 

I marvel at how ordinary the faithful appear in the midst of their mythic journeying. I can’t stop thinking about them, even after I retreat in a panic to the airport bathroom stall. You might be asking: “How can you have an object inside of your vagina and not know it?” The truth is, the vagina is at once a finely sensitive organ alert to invitation and invasion, pleasure...