We might see things differently,
But the guy on the outside sees my sister, my mother, and my fiance as mere “females”.
A body, a hole to fill, a corpse, a mattress,
A ride, a bang, a screw, a fuck,
A piece of meat everyone wants to tear into with their teeth

After prayers, I thought it would be nice, since the corniche was nearby, to go sit by the Nile with a few friends and maybe take a walk or something.
Nothing wrong with that, right?
We found officers standing there, which was a little out of the ordinary, but at least they’d be able to protect us from harassers I thought.

I was fifteen years old.
I was visiting the countryside,
Where I went on a walk with my cousins and sisters.
Eid here is different.
One should not go out after noon.
I didn’t know that when I suggested going for a walk.

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.

I was harassed two years ago.
I was walking down the street,
And I felt someone following me,
So I went down another street,
But he kept following me.

“We’ll force you to wear the veil.”
We heard that line a lot from Salafis.
We heard it from bus drivers and people who sat next to us on buses and metros.
We heard it constantly.

I was waiting for the tram,
When I saw them coming towards me,
And calling two others from behind.

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 was in a taxi with one of my friends.
It was nighttime.
And on the way, close to the police station in Nasr City,
An officer got up to stop our taxi when he realized a boy and a girl were sitting next to one another in the backseat.

For example, in a shaabi area,
You can’t walk with your arms around a woman.
You’d be asking for it if you did.
It’s okay to just walk alongside a woman,
But without any display of affection.
If you walk with your arms around a woman,
You’d never hear the end of it.