“Why do you talk to boys?
Why’d we send you to an all-girls school then?”

Studying is something I’ve been used to doing ever since I was young. I feel like something’s missing if I don’t study.
Or I feel unsafe.
Despite this, I actually hate studying!
No matter how much I study, mama always thinks that I’m playing, and that I don’t care about my studies.
She thinks extracurricular student activities, meetings, and conferences are useless!

My upbringing was very conservative and restrictive,
The house and Amm Salah’s supermarket at the end of our street were my limits.
Just these two.
From kindergarten to the second or third grade
I went to an Islamic school.

Listen here, boys. I dismissed the girls because I know you have some questions.
Write your questions on a piece of paper, fold it and give it to me. I’ll answer your questions.
This questions reads: How do I stop masturbating?

When I’d drop my nephews off at school, or when I’d be standing or passing by my old school
I’d remember the weird things I used to do
I’m not saying I didn’t hit anyone, I mean I had to!
masculinity, school, adolescence

In first or second grade, there was this boy.
He used to wait for me outside of school,
Just so he’d grab my bag, throw it to the ground, and then run away.
masculinity, social pressure, parents, school, adolescence

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.

Normally, no one attended classes, but everyone showed up for this one: the lesson on reproduction.
The classroom was packed.
Students from other classes even joined our class for the lesson.
Apparently some boys made it their mission to attend every one of these lessons.

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.

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.”