The Old Man’s Newspaper

2016

I was sitting on the right side,
And the old man was sitting on the left.
He was reading a newspaper,
And his right hand was hidden under it.
He had the newspaper wide open,
So that it even took up my space.

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According to the Law

2013

You mean to tell me if a woman has acid thrown on her in the street and her face is disfigured, then so long as her organs are still functioning, the charge will still be ‘physical assault of a woman?’”

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I Never Ran

2013

I never ran or even moved from my place.
I remember really well,
When I’d run up the stairs,
Or run in Agamy market.

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Why Did You Go There?

2012

“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.

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Miss Lobna

2015

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.

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You're All The Same

2013

You said I was only pretending to be a liberal,
And I turned out to be a conservative woman who had issues,
Just like any other Egyptian woman.
You said that because I refused to do what you wanted.

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My Mother Is Cruel

2019

I was molested by my father when I was a child.

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Faisal Street

2014

I was walking down Faisal Street with Nada.
We were on our way back from a funeral.
I could feel that Nada was waiting for someone to say something,
So she’d hit them.
I was scared.
Oh, God!

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I Am Scared of All Men

2015

I was crossing El-Tagneed Street one morning, it was ten minutes to 7:00, when suddenly, a man driving past in a car spanked my behind.

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The Bus Stop

2015

At the bus stop,
The driver didn’t have available seats in the front, so we decided to look for another bus.
The drivers kept sending us back and forth between one another, and one of them was unnecessarily rude.
“I won’t let you get on any bus!” he told us.

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