We got engaged, and then married.
My mother never talked to me about anything except on the day before the wedding.
It was the first time we talked about boys.
She was very calm as she told me what to do and that I shouldn’t upset him.
romantic relationships, marriage, sex, parents

In my time, we didn’t go in for examinations.
We were circumcised right away.
I was in second grade.
My mother told me what was going to happen,
She told me that it would feel like a pinprick.

I decided not to have any contact with men when I was 17 years old.
Some people told me, “You’ve become too conservative.”
While others told me, “May God bless you.”
And a lot of my friends stopped talking to me altogether.
But no one told me how to deal with my fiance.

I thought I’d ask my science teacher since he probably knew about these things.
I showed him the book.
But turns out the things I couldn’t understand in the book were problematic.
He sent me to the school principal.
“I don’t know where she got this book. We need to call her parents,” he said.
sex, sex education, school

We were all girls like you once.
I was a young girl just like you before marrying your father.
We all went through the same things.
We’d just play sports and take a cold shower.

My cousins and I were circumcised on the same day.
I didn’t feel anything because I was under anesthesia.
But I remember lying on the bed with my legs spread wide.
My relatives came over to congratulate us.
I was very embarrassed.

There were a lot of women of different ages on the stairs,
And everywhere else.
They were all gathered in front of a specific room.
I was terrified.
I didn’t know what was happening.
Then, a tall, chubby man came out,
Carrying the older girl’s sister.
She wasn’t wearing any pants,
And she was bandaged up.

My first divorce was because I wouldn't have sex with him,
But there were a lot of things I didn’t understand.
My family didn’t tell me anything.
I didn’t know anything at all.
To the extent that I wasn’t quite sure what the bridal cloth was for.
domestic violece; gender violence; physcial violence; sex; motherhood; addiction; social pressure; marriage; divorce

When I was little
My mother told me that a girl’s private parts are called a box of pearls
When I got older and we learned about reproduction
I asked my mother
and she told me the same thing that our teacher Mr. Mahmoud told me

For the longest time, perhaps until after highschool, I thought all girls were like me.
Then I found out that not all of them were like me.
I didn’t understand what it meant. What’s the difference?
I would always avoid thinking about the incident.
Until a black cloud formed in my mind, engulfing the memory of this incident.