I’m going to kill Mohsin one of these days.
Mohsin was my ex-husband.
When we got divorced, I got married to another guy.
His name’s Mohamed.
But we didn’t get legally married.
We got married at a lawyer’s.
I got arrested shortly after.
I was released on the first day of Ramadan.
I got three years for drugs and a year and a half for check fraud.

After I was released, my brother told me that he bought my mother’s apartment and provided for me when I was in jail.
He also said that the money my mother saved up for me was finished.
It turned out that my overall expenses over the past four and a half years were 5,000 LE, which my brother paid.
My mother used to visit me in jail. She’d bring me cigarettes, chicken—that kind of stuff
And I had a job when I was in jail.

When I was released on the first day of Ramadan, the world felt like a wonderful place. My kids were all grown up.
Then, I found out that my family made my second husband divorce me.
I had a copy of our marriage certificate and so did he.
He still has a copy till this day.
But my brother told me that he made him divorce me and tear up his copy.
Around the 6th day of Ramadan, I got a call from Mohamed.
“No, I didn’t tear up our marriage certificate. Do you want a divorce?”
“No, I don’t, but my brother said he made you divorce me.”
“No, that didn’t happen,” Mohamed said.
But the phone Mohamed had with him in prison was taken away from him, so I couldn’t reach him again.
My brother swore up and down that he had forced Mohamed to divorce me, and Mohamed said that he didn’t.

Things got heated between me and my siblings. I was made fun of and had to endure the stuff that my children and people said about me.
But I didn’t do anything wrong.
I got divorced from one man and married another. I was jailed and later released.
Anyway, they forced me to go back to my ex-husband Mohsin, the father of my children.
I was forced to go to a marriage registrar.
This happened two days after Eid-ul-Fitr.
I didn’t say a word to him.
I have stopped speaking to my siblings ever since.

I’m back with Mohsin, but I can’t stand living with him.
I hate that I had slept in the arms of another man, and now I was forced to sleep next to Mohsin again.
I hate living with him. He always says the same shit in front of the kids:
“You went and married someone else, you fornicator.”
“That wasn’t fornication. We got married illegally, that’s true, but for a marriage to be valid you need to declare it in front of other people, and everyone knew I had married him. I did nothing wrong.”
He’d still curse me and call me disgusting things anyway.
He keeps saying these things in front of the kids.
He just did again yesterday.
I have five kids: Ahmed, who’s 21; Sarah, who’s 18; Hassan, who’s 16; and Samah and Hussein, who are 12-year-old twins.
“She abandoned you and left,” he said. “She’s not a human being. She’s out to get me. I never did anything to her. I even married her again.”
I told him that I still didn’t want to live with him.

If I tell anyone I want to get a divorce from Mohsin, they’ll say it’s because “there’s someone else in my life.”
“You want to get a divorce because of Mohamed. You want to be with him again.”
The truth is that I don’t want anything. I don’t care about men right now.
All I care about are my children.
When I was released, all I cared about was seeing my children.

My life now takes place entirely between four walls.
I don’t go out. I don’t go anywhere.
I don’t know what people want from me.
I just want peace. I want someone to tell me words of comfort.
I want someone to ask me what’s hurting me. To ask me what’s wrong.
But I have no one. I don’t know or understand anything.
I’m just living without being alive.

At the same, I’m afraid of how little money I have.
I’m afraid of going back to dealing drugs.
I’m afraid I’ll end up killing Mohsin one day and going back to jail.
I’m afraid of so many things.
I’m afraid of everyone.
People who see me say, “Oh, you have a lot of kids, but you don’t look old at all.”
“What do you want me to do? Make my face all wrinkly? Dress in ragged clothing?”
People stare at me now.
Even though I don’t dress nicely or anything.

I want to be with my siblings, but I can’t.
My sister had made fun of me, and her husband too.
“Your sister is an ex-con, she sold drugs,” he’d tell her.
A couple of months later he was caught snorting cocaine and was arrested and thrown in jail.
She said it was my fault, but I said I wasn’t going to gloat.
I want to do something for my kids. I just don’t know what. The only thing I can think of is drugs.

Last night, I felt like I wanted to go visit my mother’s grave.
But, unfortunately, I didn’t have enough money to do so.
My mother died when I was in jail. Her death is still really hard to deal with.