Last week I had an argument with my ex.
He confronted me in public.
All because he found out that my daughter and I have jobs.
“You shouldn't be working!” he said.
How can we not work when he doesn't pay me any child support?!
domestic violence, gender violence, sexual violence, physical violence, marriage, divorce

I’m a girl in college.
I spent my early childhood in Saudi Arabia
Saudi girls had a habit of sticking their tongues out.
I was too young to know right from wrong.
One time in elementary school,
I did the same,
I stuck out my tongue at mama,
Over something I didn’t like.

I was on top of him. I’d just come. He wasn’t inside me.
I was reaching for the condoms when he forced himself inside me, holding me down by the hips. I closed my eyes and waited for him to finish.
Something was wrong.
domestic violence, gender violence, sexual violence, marital rape, marriage, divorce

The first time I was hit was by my brother Mohamed.
I was 14 years old.
I was flirting with a couple of boys.
I was wearing a skirt that day,
And I was standing by the door.
How dare I stand by the door like that?
My brother hit me with a hose across my chest.
I asked God for revenge.
He was imprisoned the following day.
domestic violence, physical violence, parents, marriage

He instructed me to put on my nightgown.
I put it on, but I didn't want to leave the bedroom wearing nothing but it.
“Goddamn it,” he exclaimed, “Let’s try and get this done sometime today!”
“Your family’s waiting in the street!”
domestic violence, gender violence, sexual violence, sex education, sex work, virginity testing

I’m 19 years old.
Today, baba beat me with a rubber hose and shoved me to the floor

I’m in my late twenties.
When I was 5 years old,
Something happened that made me quite mad at my parents.
I saw baba beating mama.
I remember sitting on the floor in their room crying,
terrified of the violence I was witnessing.
She fell next to me when he was beating her.

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.

When my father died,
My brother decided he’d be the man of the house.
That didn’t mean that he’d help us.
It meant my sisters and I would be his servants.

My father used to yell at me all the time.
For things like putting too much food on his plate,
Or him not liking the tea,
Or if the tea was cold.
He would even yell at me if I left the window open when it was cold outside.
I was supposed to figure out that he was cold on my own.
parents, domestic violence, gender violence