I invented something called “The red lines”,
And I imagined them drawn on my body.
So that I could mark the boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed.

But listen to me here: let him be in control.
There’s no yes or no.
Here, women don’t talk about these things.
You must only do as he says.

I was in sixth grade.
I got home one day,
And mama told me
“Go take a shower.
We’re going out.”
I thought we were visiting a relative.
I asked her where to,
“We’re going to the doctor.”
She explained circumcision to me,
“It’s a simple process.
It’s like a tiny pin prick.”

I was around 13.
We were in the countryside, where every girl had to be circumcised.
One of my mother’s relatives was a nurse, and used to perform circumcisions.
She examined me at first to check what will need to be cut,
It was the first time in my life that someone would examine me like that.

I learned one day that my neighbor whom I used to play with was getting married.
She was almost 16 years old.
“I’ve got something that my husband will take from me and throw away tomorrow morning,” she said.

I remember the pushing,
The kicking,
And the yelling.
I remember every time I said no,
And how he continued anyway.
At times,
I felt as if I were transforming into a pillow,
By the way he’d close his eyes,
And forget that I was even there.
It killed me.
gender violence; sexual violence; rape; masculinity; sex; sexuality

I was pretty young—eight years old—the day I started working at the workshop. It was during a school vacation.
There wasn’t internet back then, and there were only two TV channels.
I knew nothing about sex at the time.
gender violence, sexual violence, child molestation, sex

It was a cursed day. I’ll never forget it.
He called me at 7 in the morning, so it didn’t seem unusual.
Long story short,
His voice suddenly changed.
“What are you wearing?” he asked.

I always thought that a girl who was a virgin
Would look different from a girl who wasn’t.
For a long time, I wondered what the difference might be.

I was a little older at the time.
I was in the seventh grade when mama took me to a gynecologist.
The doctor said, verbatim, “she doesn’t need to be circumcised.”
I understood what they were talking about,
What they wanted to do to me.
“The doctor said I don’t need it,” I told them.
“We know better than the doctor,” my aunt retorted