My upbringing was very conservative and restrictive.
The house and Amm Salah’s supermarket at the end of our street were my limits.
Just these two.
From kindergarten to the second or third grade
I went to an Islamic school.

Then I started going to a public school close to home.
All the kids in this school were the children of doormen,
And there were many older students
Who kept failing and repeating the year, failing and repeating the year.
They’d come to school hiding razor blades under their tongues.
This made me terribly scared of the world,
It made it hard to talk.
So I didn’t utter a word.
During breaks, I used to sit in a corner and eat my sandwiches.
I didn’t speak to anyone and no one spoke to me.

In fourth grade there was a kid called Sameh,
He was huge.
I don’t know how old he was, but he was older than I was.
I started noticing that Sameh would sit next to me during the break,
Without talking.
Then he started interfering when someone bothered me and pushed them.

One time during the break he turned to me and said,
“I’m Sameh, how are you?”
I didn’t respond, so he left.
Later, he talked to me and I told him, “My name is Sarah.”
We started talking and we became friends until the class noticed.
They kept saying Sameh loves Sarah
And they’re sitting in a tree.
I got upset and stopped talking to Sameh.

I found him following me on my way to school and on my way back,
But I decided not to talk to him.
Because the kids in class bother me.
And I don’t even like him!