Tuesday, August 6, 2019

My Novel "A Rebel's Diary"

Date: 2014 - 2019
Word Count: 9525
Excerpt: "You took everything, but the glam in my eyes when I fight back as bright as my un-straightened wild fire dyed hair flying as wind blows against me as I walk on the forbidden streets during the curfew. Under your fist, I died and was reborn of pieces splattered in parallel directions. I pace back and forth while music from my headphones flow thoughts in my mind, then stop at the balcony, and try to inhale the streets outside my prison. Every breath I take cuts into my lungs marking the unity between life and pain. I dream of dancing the forbidden dance in the rain, high on freedom. Now that all what's keeping my your hostage is a key chain you strengthen your grab around in your sleep during your daily nightmares, now I am free."

Join the Facebook group "Daily Excerpts from Aliaa's Novel Draft "A Rebel's Diary" " to read daily-ish quotations from my novel draft.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/869911540025495/


Saturday, June 8, 2019

My 8th Liberation Day



Eight years ago, you threatened that, as long as you are alive, I won't get to live my life. Look at me now!

Thursday, January 3, 2019

Domestic Abuse




My abusive mom spread my number to a friend of hers to bully and harass me. These messages are nothing compared to the psychological, physical, financial and sexual abuse, discrimination and gender roles I lived under for 19 years with my parents. They couldn't break my confidence then, and they can't now.

In my childhood, they left bruises on my face then instructed me to lie and claim they were mosquito bites, and they are still trying to silence me by instilling shame in me, but the shame is all theirs.

Crazy-making, denial, burdening me with gratitude for being fucking born … I can still recall pictures of myself being hit by my mom to sit still and study instead of being nurtured to grow into the wonderful person I am, but I'm becoming more and more like who I always was despite of all their attempts to change me. I'm proud of myself, college degree or not, and of all the meaningless to them things I accomplished, and I've just begun.

My "garbage" life is my own; my mind is my own; my body, not a separate entity from me, is my own, and they can't take my "dirty" freedom away. I will never be guilted into sacrificing my being and the rest of my life to satiate their selfishness and the oppressive hierarchical system they are agents of.

I used to love my mom a love she never deserved, to plot to save us both when she, as an adult, had more resources but lacked the strength and responsibility I had.

I endangered my mental health by going to Spain to visit her filled with fantasies of her finally treating me like an independent human being. How difficult can it be to respect boundaries, such as, not to slut shame one's daughter over her clothes, or to hold her somewhere against her will? How difficult can it be to support her if she ends up in an abusive relationship instead of normalizing men's abuse and trying to use her situation to gain control over her?

After my father's death (I wish hell was real, so he could burn for all eternity) and her father's death before she married my father, she's looking for someone to depend on, and after she failed to teach me femininity, I'm the next best thing to the men taking advantage of her learned passivity, but I don't love her anymore, so what is she gonna do? Break into my apartment? Hurt the ones I care about? Add to the burdening proof that, for her, I'm an object to be destroyed if impossible to control? At this point, if she really ever loved me, she would let me go and wish the best for me.

I found love like a rare gem among fellow rebels because only the free are capable of love, and if I couldn't find it, I trust myself to have the strength to walk alone and in the front. Least and last, fuck you and your likes, and fuck abuse!