I’m 32 years old.
I’m divorced, and I don’t have any children.
When I turned 32, everyone pressured me into getting married.
I honestly wasn’t really looking forward to it.

I was on top of him. I’d just come. He wasn’t inside me.
I was reaching for the condoms when he forced himself inside me, holding me down by the hips. I closed my eyes and waited for him to finish.
Something was wrong.
domestic violence, gender violence, sexual violence, marital rape, marriage, divorce

It felt weird to tell them that I needed a hug.
I needed kindness,
I needed someone to believe in me,
Someone to support me,
To listen to me.
Someone to hang out and be friends with.

I had just turned thirty.
Fifteen years ago,
It wasn’t normal to be single at the age of thirty.
At every wedding I went to, my aunts would tell me,
“We hope you’re next, dear.
May God reward your patience.”
They’d say it with sorrowful eyes,
You know the look.
domestic violence, gender violence, physical violence, motherhood, marriage, divorce

I was always humiliated and beaten up over the most trivial reasons.
He’d hit me and flip the dining table over if there was just a little extra salt in his food.
I was never allowed to open my mouth and give my opinion.
Cooking zucchini was always a frightening experience, because if just one piece of zucchini turned out smaller than the other, it’d be a disaster.

If, while baba was beating me, I cried, he’d hit me again for crying.
“If you cry, you’ll get hit. Men don’t cry”, he’d tell me.
Whenever he beat me, my main concern was to not cry.

My first divorce was because I wouldn't have sex with him,
But there were a lot of things I didn’t understand.
My family didn’t tell me anything.
I didn’t know anything at all.
To the extent that I wasn’t quite sure what the bridal cloth was for.
domestic violece; gender violence; physcial violence; sex; motherhood; addiction; social pressure; marriage; divorce

He was always suspicious of me.
Whenever he went out, he’d wedge a single hair between the door and the doorframe.
When he’d get back home, he’d check the door to see if I’d gone out.
His suspicions were very hard to deal with.
When God was going to bless us with a baby, my husband gave me an ultimatum: “It’s either me or the baby.”
So, I went and got an abortion.
motherhood, social stigma, domestic violence, prison, physical violence

I’m a woman who has been struggling her entire life.
Ever since I was a little girl,
I’ve been struggling.
My father was a national railways inspector.
He passed away.
I got married to a man who came from a modest family.
I thought they’d care about my wellbeing.

I’m a girl in college.
I spent my early childhood in Saudi Arabia
Saudi girls had a habit of sticking their tongues out.
I was too young to know right from wrong.
One time in elementary school,
I did the same,
I stuck out my tongue at mama,
Over something I didn’t like.