I feel like I can’t be feminine and taken seriously at the same time.
I have to either be a child or act like a man to be given worth and acceptance.
Strong women are considered to be confusing—troublesome.
womanhood, social pressure

I don’t know if there’s anything I like about my body.
I don’t know if there’s anything I like about bodies in general.
It’s because my thoughts are always fixated on the parts I don’t like or want on my body.
body image, womanhood

My period affects my life to a large degree.
Not just during it,
But also the week leading up to it,
When I’m unable to move.
My body feels weak,
And my legs feel as if they’re being pulled away from my body.
There’s usually a general feeling of exhaustion,
Which continues until my period ends.

I would always hear stories from my friends,
About how they were surprised the first time they got their periods,
And how it affected them,
And how they accepted their changing bodies.
Thank God for my mother,
May she rest in peace.
When my body started to change,
And show signs of puberty,
My mother explained to me what menstruation was,
What happens exactly during it,
And why it happens.

I was 9 years old.
I remember coming back from school,
And finding some blood in my underwear.
I thought I’d gotten injured,
And didn’t give it much thought.
I became afraid the following days,
When there was still more blood.
I didn’t want to tell my mother,
So she wouldn’t yell at me.

I always imagined myself with short hair.
Until I got it cut.
I was happy.
I felt like myself.

I wasn’t feeling well for over a month.
I had a stomach-ache,
And was feeling down all the time.
My mother took me to see a doctor when I told her.
After he examined me, he said,
“There’s nothing wrong with you.
Eat well,
And stop eating food that isn’t home-cooked.”
A month later,
I got my period.
I didn’t understand what it was at first.

My stomach started to ache really badly.
I found blood.
I stuffed a lot of tissues into my underwear.
I burst into tears and kept crying for some time.
My mother eventually found my stained shorts.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked.
I didn’t know what to say.
We had never exactly been close.
womanhood, period

I love my dawra [cycle].
I call it dawra.
I don’t like using the word “period,”
Because it makes me feel as if I’m ashamed of it.
It’s one of those words we say in another language,
Because we’re too embarrassed of it.
I refer to it as my cycle because I’m not embarrassed by it.

I got my period for the first time when I was 11 years old.
I wasn’t taken by surprise.
I didn’t get scared.
Mama had always made me get her pads ever since I was very little.
And she had told me that when girls get older,
They bleed a little every month.
womanhood, period