Because My Ankles Are So Goddamn Sexy.

I hate hypocrisy. The way the women will cover their hair just to judge you for yours. Your virgin hair. The way they will wax their brows and shave their thick, ingrown staches and partake in all painful acts of “beauty” that is haraam. For every bitch but the betrothed. But you? You don’t hide your god-given body? Hell. You’re damned. It is invigorating to think They think they are better for doing the same things as I, but in the dark. Do you think that I should feel ashamed of my openness?  My genetics, my choices? That, just because my hair is shorter than yours – intentionally, by the way, the way I cut it with my own two hands – that I am not as beautiful as you, or your daughter, or worthy of your son? There’s a word, “asmarani,” that makes me throw up a little in my mouth whenever I hear one of the aunties whisper it in the midst of shouting gossip about every other “flaw” of this one bachelorette to the rest of the aunties who just so happened to conveniently forget that gossiping, too, is haraam. The word translates to “darkie.” It’s the long-lasting Imperialism still engraved in their colonized minds that “white is prettier.” Even when they claim they hate Racists, when They are One Themselves – whether known to them or not. The funniest part about it is that I could not give a literal fuck about your little son’s opinion of my attractiveness. You think I’m offended to be “rejected” by someone I never desired in the first place? Like it’s anything but flattering. Because you are right to think so. I am furious to be a subject of your judgment. And his. That he is someone who believes women are slaves - there to cook, clean, fuck, and love you - but only if you marry her, because otherwise she is spoiled goods. If you think that her worth plummets because you, a man, touched her, then what does that say about your goddamned dirty hands? To think I would not be fit for your son is right. These women want you to take their place - to worship these men that don’t worship these women but only outwardly claim so… on the basis of… culture. It’s a whole family of Hypocrisy. Passed down from one to another. How come they don’t teach their sons to Lower Their Gaze? Maybe their eyes would meet my ankles. My exposed, sexy ankles. Maybe then, these Arab Men would understand that Heaven does in fact lie under a woman’s feet. Because every part of me is, in fact, sexy. Because if it’s one thing they are right about, it is that every inch of a woman is a beauty, a privilege, a god-given gift that you, as a Sexist man, do not have the right to even so much as to look at. Powerful enough to implant an Unholy thought in your mind and damn you out of Heaven the way God did Adam. Powerful enough to birth a million of you or none of you. I remember in college, this Frat Friend told me, “You are like a Medusa. When a man looks at you, he turns to stone.”  And I remember thinking, what a fucking blessing to be protected by the brutal force of objectification. To be so powerful to destroy a male by simply reciprocating his act. The other day, I was in the middle of playing soccer with a 10-year- old, a son of a Khalto, his brother, and a woman older than I, when he asked me, “Why don’t you wear the hijab?” One of those unanswerable questions asked by a curious kid. I was stunned, honestly, at the audacity. I was raised to know better than to question someone’s religiosity. Yet… here I am. Oh but I used to, Little One, before I could even answer for myself, the choice was made. But all I could say was, “Why don’t You?” Of course, my rhetorical question flew over his tiny head. If anything, I just wanted to Shut Him Up, what with all his attempts to ensnare me with a wagging finger and a snarky, “come, habibti, come.” He held his gaze and kicked the ball right in between my open legs and said what I could not -he said, “Because I don’t have to.”