Mr. Khairy asked me to come sit with you for a bit.
Who asked Mr. Khairy about the [Quranic] verse
that speaks of the Guarding of private parts?
Who?!
When I was little
My mother told me that a girl’s private parts are called a box of pearls
When I got older and we learned about reproduction
I asked my mother
and she told me the same thing that our teacher Mr. Mahmoud told me
I don’t have the right to ask about your past.
But I think it’s important to talk about this.
There’s no such thing as a woman’s virginity.
There’s no difference between a man and a woman’s virginity.
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 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.