I walked until I reached Talaat Harb square.
As soon as I got there,
I found groups of young adults and children all over the square.
There were groups of no less than 10 children each.
I thought to myself that that was enough walking for the day,

I was pushed against a wall, then I was pushed and shoved some more until I found myself inside a clothes shop on Talaat Harb Street. The attacks were random but very aggressive. I could hear gunshots.

We were walking down the street, holding hands.
A man passed us by and laughed in derision.
“What are you in love or something?”
social stigma, sexuality, harassment, the street

I was walking down a street with two friends of mine, and a man kept following us, saying,
“I want to fuck you” and do so and so to you. The kind of talk everyone’s familiar with.
One of my friends stopped walking and cussed him out.
gender violence, harassment, social stigma, the street

It was a cursed day. I’ll never forget it.
He called me at 7 in the morning, so it didn’t seem unusual.
Long story short,
His voice suddenly changed.
“What are you wearing?” he asked.

I heard a girl scream as I ran towards the crowd.
I started pulling people out of the way, trying to reach her, but I was shoved out of the circle of men surrounding her every single time.

How can I possibly talk about just one harassment incident,
When I get harassed more than three or four times a day?
My life is full of harassment incidents.
gender violence, harassment, the street

We were on our way to Qena from Luxor.
We took the two seats behind the driver.
Our friend sat next to him.
Old men around the age of 56 sat behind us.
“I feel something strange,” the friend sitting next to me said as the bus started to move.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment

I was in third grade the first time I was sexually harassed.
 I don’t even really remember what happened, but I remember feeling that something wrong had happened.

During my first week of college,
I used to suffer through metro rides.
I was still that naive girl,
Who hadn’t up until that point taken public transportation,
Because her school was in the same neighborhood as where she lived.