You’re a slut.
You travel with boys.
You smoke.
And your paintings?!
You brought us shame,
Don’t come back home.

He used to hit me,
And curse me.
He wanted me to quit everything: work and school.
Because he wasn’t very ambitious.
He only agreed that I get a job when we decided he’d take my salary.
“You should thank God I married you,” he’d say.
“You’re supposed to clean up my shit.”
domestic violence, marriage, divorce, gender violence, physical violence

I was walking down a busy street one day,
When I felt someone press against my back.
There was someone embracing me from behind.
I thought it was someone I knew.
gender violence, harassment, the street

We might see things differently,
But the guy on the outside sees my sister, my mother, and my fiance as mere “females”.
A body, a hole to fill, a corpse, a mattress,
A ride, a bang, a screw, a fuck,
A piece of meat everyone wants to tear into with their teeth

When I was little, I often dreamt of a demon.
I’d bang on our front door as the demon came down the stairs.
I’d scream and my voice would catch in my throat.
My hands would grow heavier as I pounded on the door.
When I got married, I started to suspect that demon was my husband.
domestic violence, gender violence, physical violence, social stigma, work, addiction

I’m a 23-year-old girl.
I graduated from college,
My siblings live abroad.
One of my brothers suddenly came back home.
That’s when I started getting beaten over every little thing.

Mama was paranoid about harassment.
She thought it was everywhere.
She wanted to protect me.

I was 12 when I travelled with my family at the end of term to Upper Egypt.
That’s where the story began.
One day, I felt a sharp pain in my stomach,
I felt nauseous for three days straight.
That’s when my aunt, who was a 65 year old uneducated woman, decided,
“Our girl is getting older… the midwife must visit.”

Their looks pierce my soul.
O Allah, what should I do?
Why?
Why do people’s stares bother me?
I feel like something is attacking me.

I saw a 7-year-old boy physically harassing a girl.
I was confused.
How did the boy know which parts of the woman’s body
to touch?
How? He’s only seven!