I was lost.
I was trying to figure things out.
Where did I go wrong?
The anger I had inside me for wasting years of my life was projected onto my poor son.
I wanted to be selfish.
I wanted to love myself.
I’ve been through enough.
motherhood, marriage, divorce

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.”

Cleanliness is the most important thing.
You should smell good, and you should be dressed up.
I’ll visit you tomorrow.
Make your mama proud.
We’re all coming tomorrow to check on you.

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

Two of my friends fell in love and decided to be together.
Two months into their relationship, he proposed.
I knew my guy friend to be open-minded.
However, he started asking my other friend, his fiancee, not to hang out or talk with other guys.

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

In middle school,
I used to love wearing shorts and dancing in front of the mirror.
My mother would smack me.

My family was always very critical,
And they tended to make fun of people.
I was born with flawed joints.
I could walk very well and run and all that,
But when I stood,
My knees bent backward,
At first sight, it looked like my legs had been amputated.
My family always called me “Miss knees,”
And my mother always made fun of me in front of my siblings.
She thought I was inverting my knees like this on purpose.
She once even called me “disabled,”
And told me to straighten my knees.

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.

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