That day,
I felt happy,
Because my mother had taken me for a walk around the house,
After my science exam.
I quickly went to the bathroom,
And found blood in my underwear.
I didn’t care.
I put a few tissues,
And decided not to tell anyone.

One day I called her to see if we can go out together to the mall so that I can shop for some clothes and other things I needed. She said: “OK, but I have to take my dad’s permission first because he’s off from work today and he’s staying home and I won’t be able to fool him.”

I loved playing football when I was ten years old.
I would beg my mother to let me play with them.
And the answer was always,
“You’re a girl. I can’t just leave you in the streets alone.”
social pressure, social stigma, parents, marriage

No one has ever experienced what my father put me through.
It’s such a difficult thing to live through,
When you’re a kid in first grade,
And your father takes you home from school,
And beats you with a spiked rod,
Nails penetrating your entire body.
It was a long walk home,
And I was being beaten up continuously,
blood gushing out of the wounds.
All of this for something I didn’t do.
Something that wasn’t my fault.

Their idea of “protection” is misconstrued.
It’s no different than my father putting me inside a box.

My father was the first person to touch me.
I used to tell myself that I was imagining it.
When he’d touch me with his leg from behind,
I’d tell myself he was just being playful.

Mama asked me what I thought about her and baba getting a divorce.

“That means he won’t watch TV with us anymore”, I said.

I’m your mother and I have your best interests at heart.
I’m telling you it’s not going to work out.
Building your lives together is not something that’ll work.

"How’s your love life?” she asked.
I forced a laugh.
The question embarrassed me.
She insisted that I was a romantic and that apparently my whole family were romantics.
"You know,” she began, “if you want to get married, I could bring you a lot of suitors to meet.”

Ahmed: “What do you think of that hottie over there?”
Amr: “Which one? The veiled one?
I love veiled women.”
Ahmed: “Really?
Why?”
Amr: “You know when you get a wrapped present,
And you take your time unwrapping it?”
Ahmed: “I’m talking about the girl walking with her, man.
Of course I wasn’t talking about that woman over there.
She looks like the potential brides my mother makes me meet.”
Amr: “Your mother makes you meet potential brides?”
Ahmed: “Yeah, man.
All the time.
She thinks they’re all like her,
Or will be like her in exactly two years.
I’ve stopped meeting them,
So, now she sends me their pictures on Facebook.”