{"id":28196,"date":"2025-06-17T11:54:06","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T06:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=28196"},"modified":"2025-06-17T11:54:07","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T06:24:07","slug":"words-a-blade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/words-a-blade\/","title":{"rendered":"Words, a blade!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a boy growing up in an Arabic-speaking country,
I was called many names, all feminine.
\u201cNua’em\u201d<\/em> – soft, \u201cRisha\u201d<\/em> – feathery,
\u201cBanoteh\u201d<\/em>– girly, \u201cDalo’ah<\/em>\u201d – flamboyant.
Let\u2019s not forget \u201cTant\u201d<\/em> – sissy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Words made up the teeth of a blade.
I cried, felt left out, believed I deserved to die.
I hated the feminine adjective.
They forced me to abhor it, to fear it,
a jittering blade.
How could a whole gender be a weapon?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I ran into boys\u2019 sports to fit in,
but the difference in me couldn\u2019t be tamed.
A world obsessed with the binary made me go mad.
I was stuck in between,
my dad\u2019s reputation always at stake,
because his eldest son is not of the same make.
A burden I shoulder till today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou are not like him, you are his eldest?\u201d
They would remark in disbelief,
expecting a man \u2013 tall, strong, muscular.
These are their words, their vision,
a blade that left a cut in my veins
but no scars, because scars mean healing!
I am far from healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their vocabulary made me recoil into the shadows.
I couldn\u2019t belong, not even in grief.
I remember at the funeral house
being told to go to the women\u2019s side,
they said \u201cgirly stuff\u201d belongs there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bullies, my dear bullies,
I could tell you now your words made me stronger,
but that\u2019s a big fat lie!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even today, when I go back to my hometown,
I have to butch up the act.
Words that are masculine must be utilised.
Objectifying women, that macho practice I try to avoid,
but when you do it, I have to smile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even today I have to hide.
We grew up, and you would think we moved on,
but you, now, with age, with families now made,
how manly of you,
how well you fit in a society
that will never be mine.
A longer distance between us is forged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I see you and pray to Allah,
please don\u2019t bully me again,
please don\u2019t embarrass me in front of the friend I brought from abroad,
or my mom, or my dad\u2026
please don\u2019t call me \u201cBanoteh\u201d<\/em>,
please don\u2019t ask me why I\u2019m not married with a child
please don\u2019t take out the blade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My accent is not rough enough, they said
very characteristic of the boy that I am not.
I had to police the choice of words, the accent that is roughed up.
They told me to say \u201cGhahbeh\u201d<\/em> – whore,
with the \u201cgh\u201d<\/em> sound, not \u201cAhbeh\u201d<\/em>
when you catcall a girl who doesn\u2019t comply.
How could letters be a ground for a whole identity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I\u2019m running around in my 30s,
throwing band-aids on the \u201cnot scars\u201d of your blade.
Arabic, the language you bullied me in,
became something I fear.
I couldn\u2019t belong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I moved abroad,
Imbibing the culture, seeking jobs, yearning to fit in,
Hoping to heal in a
a foreign language.
Foreign words to reconcile the identity
you centrifuged to conformity.
Therapy gave me a dictionary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this dictionary, I try to find myself,
collecting words to describe who I am.
What am I?
To only realise this is a blade
that also spoke English.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter where you are,
humans find a way to discriminate.
Sharpen the blade, get a confession \u2013
he is a brown sissy boy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot scars\u201d caused by carved letters
on my skin remain,
and I find myself still
shying away,
avoiding the acid rain
that you bullies, all of you contain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cover image by Igor bispo<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These are their words, their vision,
\na blade that left a cut in my veins <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":28235,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3401,4719],"tags":[4725,1295,2233,3982,1792,66,55,4726,784,121,26,778,317,1803,1465,570,1586,4727,1563,1001,71,268,303,40,99,25,2310,1576,1157],"class_list":{"0":"post-28196","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fiction-poetry","8":"category-language-and-sexuality-2","9":"tag-arabic","10":"tag-belonging","11":"tag-body-language","12":"tag-bullying","13":"tag-conformity","14":"tag-desire","15":"tag-discrimination","16":"tag-exile","17":"tag-femininity","18":"tag-feminism","19":"tag-gender","20":"tag-gender-binary","21":"tag-gender-identity","22":"tag-gender-nonconformity","23":"tag-healing","24":"tag-homophobia","25":"tag-homophobic-slurs","26":"tag-hurt","27":"tag-language","28":"tag-lgbtqia","29":"tag-love","30":"tag-masculinity","31":"tag-mental-health","32":"tag-queer","33":"tag-relationships","34":"tag-sexualities","35":"tag-sisa-spaces","36":"tag-slurs","37":"tag-trauma"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28196"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28237,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28196\/revisions\/28237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}