My first experience with harassment was, unfortunately, from the person closest to me.
That person also happened to be my cousin who was a few years older than me. 
She would spend the summers at our place, and my parents would go to work.
gender violence, sexual violence, harassment

There was a guy in a red car,
Who kept slowing down for me.
He kept saying something,
But I can’t bring myself to say it out loud.
All I can say is that it was about a specific part of my back.

I was in third grade the first time I was sexually harassed.
 I don’t even really remember what happened, but I remember feeling that something wrong had happened.

I stopped wearing the hijab a few months ago.
Ramadan is approaching and I’m terrified.
I’m afraid of what my family might say.
I’m afraid of what people in the street will say.
social stigma, hijab, hair, harassment, the street, social pressure

I heard a girl scream as I ran towards the crowd.
I started pulling people out of the way, trying to reach her, but I was shoved out of the circle of men surrounding her every single time.

I saw a 7-year-old boy physically harassing a girl.
I was confused.
How did the boy know which parts of the woman’s body
to touch?
How? He’s only seven!

I was once riding the train on my way to university in Minya.
I was wearing boots that were mid-leg. They looked a lot like those combat boots which recruited soldiers wear.
I was alone on the train, no one was sitting beside me.

I don’t know where it’s going to happen next time.
I can’t predict who’s going to harass me next time.
Everyone’s a potential harasser.
They’re the reason I can’t tell anyone.

I’m wearing the wrong pants today.
Please, God, divert their attention elsewhere.
I hate them.
I hate my life.

I still can’t forget the look on his face as he passed me by in a toktok after he had touched me from behind.
“Take that”, he said.
That was the first time I was sexually harassed. I was 15.