I remember that day clearly.
I knew that I was going to get circumcised, it happened to my sisters.
I was 12 then. I took a shower and they dressed me in a short skirt.
They took me to a surgeon. He passed away, but I will never pray for him.
I will never forgive my mother either.

I was 14, and I was walking down the street.
It was a Thursday night and the streets were busy,
And no one was paying attention to anyone.
I was crossing the street,
And someone who was passing besides me on a motorcycle,
Touched my ass.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment, the street

At the beginning, I used to sit across the table from him.
After a while, he asked me to sit next to him.
He began to make a habit out of patting me...

When I was ten years old,
The sheikh called me to him and took me inside a closet,
Where he touched my private parts.

If only my mother had explained why she had warned me,
And what could have happened to me,
I certainly wouldn’t have gone.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation

I was fed up with his silly blabber.
He didn’t stop talking the whole ride.
I remembered the stories I heard about taxi drivers.
I had one hand on the handle as he chattered away.

My first story:
A 7-year-old girl.
She goes to the grocery store every day.
The grocer forces her to look at the scale behind the counter as he stands behind her and says,
“I can’t see very well.”
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation

Inside me,
Is a man called Mohamed.
He comes out in different situations.
Like when Sara goes out alone,
Or goes out with her girl friends.

I was once riding the train on my way to university in Minya.
I was wearing boots that were mid-leg. They looked a lot like those combat boots which recruited soldiers wear.
I was alone on the train, no one was sitting beside 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.