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

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.

Their looks pierce my soul.
O Allah, what should I do?
Why?
Why do people’s stares bother me?
I feel like something is attacking me.

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

I never physically harassed a woman.
When I would like a girl, I would go speak to her.
It satisfied my ego.
That was until I saw a girl being harassed in the street.

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.

Whenever I go out during Ramadan
young men who pass by me mutter,
“O Allah, I seek refuge in you from all evil and evil-doers.”
gender violence, harassment, the street

How is it that he molests me, and takes away a part of me,
but I’m expected to censor myself when I tell the story?
I regret ever listening to what you had to say,
to what you call traditional or proper or haram.

I didn’t know what violation meant.
It all started near the ful cart.
It’s when the mosque’s sheikh made me stand next to him because it was crowded.
I suddenly found his hand on my breast.
I didn’t understand what was going on, but I knew I had to get away from him.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment

When I was in the eighth grade, there was a boy with me at school who was blond and fair-skinned. He was a grade younger than I was.
Wherever he went, the other students would harass him. He was absent a lot because of this. His father came in to complain more than once but to no avail.