We’re not allowed to laugh in public.
We’re not allowed to be happy or dance in public.
We’re not allowed to sing in public.
We’re not even allowed to cry in public.
We’re not allowed to do anything in public.

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 was in the third grade and we took the same bus to school.
He was fair-skinned and had rosy cheeks.
He had thick, soft, jet black hair.
He had thick eyebrows and piercing eyes.
He was the class and bus clown.
He was that kid who joked around all the time.
I loved him.
romantic relationships, school

When I was in college, a joke started about someone in our group and spread throughout the entire university:
“Is that your body, Ahmed, or your mother’s?

As soon as the bell rang,
The boys locked the door.
I was in the neighboring classroom when it happened.
They locked the doors and windows.
They assaulted her and sexually harassed her,
Completely tearing apart her clothes.

I used to hate the low-rise jeans trend.
I didn’t know how to get into those jeans.
I used to force myself to either wear something really long that hid my butt, which would make me look like a whale,
Or tie something around my waist.

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

He molested a girl in second grade.
I didn’t understand and couldn’t fathom what was happening.
I only knew that I was very mad.
But I didn’t say anything.
He was my English teacher.

I thought I’d ask my science teacher since he probably knew about these things.
I showed him the book.
But turns out the things I couldn’t understand in the book were problematic.
He sent me to the school principal.
“I don’t know where she got this book. We need to call her parents,” he said.
sex, sex education, school

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.”