I don’t know where it’s going to happen next time.
I can’t predict who’s going to harass me next time.
Everyone’s a potential harasser.
They’re the reason I can’t tell anyone.

Why does everything bad happen only to me?
I weighed myself yesterday.
I’m gaining, not losing, weight.
I’m depressed.
My body’s a mess.
I need to change.

One day they brought bang snaps to school,
And they threw it at Mrs. Cherine while she was writing on the board.
She was startled and when she turned around
Two or three boys got up, closed the door, turned off the lights,

When I was in middle school, I loved my science teacher so much.
I was a good student so he, too, loved me.
During winter breaks, they always gave us a lot of homework to do.
One time during the break, I got sick and went to Cairo to get treated,
So I didn’t do the homework.

When I was in middle school, I went to a school in Al Mandara, and there was a girls' school across the street from ours. We used to finish school at the same time.

The French teacher, Miss Lubnah, was very sweet and petite.
She spoke in broken Arabic,
But her French was perfect.
She was a great French teacher.

I teach the first grade.
I make them go to the bathroom in groups.
One day, a boy told me,
“Ms., someone from sixth grade took a boy to the toilet,
And did bad things to him.”

I just couldn’t wait to grow up to be a man.
Whenever I’d see women waiting in line in front of the kiosk,
I’d go press myself up against their bodies.
The most any of them would do was just walk away.

Am I ugly? Yes, I wasn’t beautiful, or maybe that’s what they wanted me to believe.
I was chubbier than them. I wasn’t good at socializing like them. They made me think I was different.
body image, bullying, school, social pressure, beauty standards

When I was in the eighth grade, there was a boy with me at school who was blond and fair-skinned. He was a grade younger than I was.
Wherever he went, the other students would harass him. He was absent a lot because of this. His father came in to complain more than once but to no avail.