Inside me,
Is a man called Mohamed.
He comes out in different situations.
Like when Sara goes out alone,
Or goes out with her girl friends.

I entered the women’s metro car, and as usual, found men there.
Usually I fight them, but that day I wasn’t feeling well, so I said nothing.

I was fed up with his silly blabber.
He didn’t stop talking the whole ride.
I remembered the stories I heard about taxi drivers.
I had one hand on the handle as he chattered away.

The French teacher, Miss Lubnah, was very sweet and petite.
She spoke in broken Arabic,
But her French was perfect.
She was a great French teacher.

I was going home after practice dressed in sports clothes.
Two men were checking me out in the street:
“Is that a girl or a boy?”
“It’s a girl, man.”

We were at a conference.
Later at the hotel,
As we were going back to our rooms,
One of my colleagues told me,
“I’m staying in room 13.”
gender violence, harassment, work

I hate you.
I hate everything about you.
Your skin tone, your size, all your little details.

Trust me when I say that I’ve tried to accept you so many times, but I just can’t.
I can’t keep fooling myself.
body image, body shaming, beauty standards, harassment

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.

One time, a man stood across from me for quite a while. When I turned to leave, he said, “What huge tits! I really want to suck on them.”
gender violence, harassment, the street

I was on my way to college, and I was  in a hurry. I was looking around for an available microbus to get on, when a little boy sexually harassed me.
gender violence, harassment