I liked to sleep next to my parents in bed.
I’d hug my mother for a while,
Then turn over,
And hug my father.
One day, my father didn’t come home.
I stayed up all night waiting for him.
A couple of days later,
I heard he got married.

I remember I went to visit my aunt the morning after her wedding.
Everyone was in the bedroom talking about it.
Everyone would enter and look at the great wonder.

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

I was eighteen years old,
When my father would hit me and tell me,
“Will you answer back to your husband like this?”
“Will my husband hit me and treat me like this? I asked him.
“He’s going to beat you into pieces.
And if you come running to me,
I’ll send you back to him,” he replied.
domestic violence; physical violence; gender violence; parents; marriage

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.

I’m tired of my parents.
I don’t know why some people feel bad for orphans.
Maybe their lives are much better without parents.
I don’t want my parents.
They don’t do anything for me.
I don’t spend time with them.

“Are you a virgin?”
She lied and said that she wasn’t.
Just so they’d let her marry a friend of hers.
She didn’t love him, but they’re friends.
He understands her situation,
And wants to help her move out of her parents’ house.