I’ll tell you what happened but don’t tell anyone else.
Last week, when I was going home,
There was a guy who wanted to get into the elevator with me.
He looked strange.
I refused to get into the elevator with him.

I saw a 7-year-old boy physically harassing a girl.
I was confused.
How did the boy know which parts of the woman’s body
to touch?
How? He’s only seven!

“Why did you go there?”
Whenever someone asks me that,
I feel as if they only see me as a piece of meat that should be covered.
I get the urge to just cut parts off my body whenever I walk down the street.

One of the situations I’ll never forget
Was when I was walking in the street where I live - the street is dark and not well-lit -
And a boy who works at a clinic in the building next to ours had his fly open and his penis sticking out.

I was taking a walk with two friends,
When I looked behind us,
And saw a man catcalling us from afar.
I kept an eye on him,
Until he caught up and started walking beside me.
He kept saying disgusting things.
Then he said, “I want to marry all three of you.”
harassment; the street, friendship

One day they brought bang snaps to school,
And they threw it at Mrs. Cherine while she was writing on the board.
She was startled and when she turned around
Two or three boys got up, closed the door, turned off the lights,

I never imagined something like this would ever happen.
I was on the bus, standing in the front, next to the seats for elderly people.
An old man was sitting in one of the seats, and an old woman was sitting beside him next to the window.
When she was getting off, he refused to move to let her through
gender violence, harassment, public transportation

I don’t know why I’m going to tell this story,
But I’ve bottled up so much inside me.

There was a period when my parents were separated,
And my grandfather interfered a lot in our lives.
He was a very cruel man,
And so was my mother.

I was in highschool at the time.
It was inappropriate to tell mama about this sort of thing,
She never said so,
But I had a feeling that what happened could not be talked about.

I’m a girl, and I’m bullied every day,
Because I wear a cross.
People give me mean looks.
I try my best to ignore them, but they’re too much.
I’ve never really reacted to anything they’ve done.
But the way they look at me, it’s like they’re asking, “How dare you wear a cross?”
social stigma, harassment, the street