When I was a kid, before I had even turned 5,
My mom gave my black curly hair a pixie cut.
My sister’s friends always used to ask her,
“What’s your brother’s name?”
She’d draw their attention to my earrings and point out that I’m a girl.
body image, bullying, hair, beauty standards

I’m a man in my twenties.
Who has zero self-esteem.
I have always been bullied by the people I love for the way I look.
I’m neither dark-skinned,
Nor fair-skinned.
I’m tall, but not thin,
My body is disproportionate somehow.

Some people at university would compliment my skin tone and ask me,
“How do you get so tan?”
I would tell them that it wasn’t a tan.
It was my skin color.
I thought they were making fun of me,
And that something was wrong with me.

I’ve never known what it’s like to feel beautiful.
Every day I am reminded that I am fat,
That my "messy” hair looks bad,
And that I have a weird face.
My own mother tells me daily that I should lose weight.

We live in a society,
That determines whether you’ll be accepted or not,
Based on your weight,
Hair type,
Eye color,
And skin tone.

My paternal grandmother always had a brush,
And loads of hair products ready with her to tame my “unruly”, unkempt hair.
She would sit me down on my knees,
pull at my hair painfully until it got detangled,
then she would apply a lot of hair cream,
pull my hair back into a bun or braid it,
Until the curls were no longer visible.

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.

I’m thin,
I don’t have any muscles or abs.
I was okay with that, to an extent, in the beginning,
Because my body hadn’t fully developed yet,
Or basically, because I hadn’t decided to go the gym yet.
body image, bullying, masculinity

Due to a hormonal imbalance,
My breasts got really big.
Too big for a 21-year-old.
And since my lactation hormone levels were high,
My sister would tell mama,
“Don’t buy milk.
We’ll milk her every morning instead.”

Girls, I know that at this age, you like to flaunt your beauty.
“Look at my long hair!
Look at whatever!”
Here, you must forget about all those things.
The uniform you must wear is a galabiyya.
The kind your mothers wear.