A Pearl

Your stares declare your despair but I breathe in and out as I let your hatred blend into the air.

Somehow I wish I could disintegrate.

Your comments attempt to degrade me but Miss, at this moment, my beliefs will not be swayed.

**Towel head, terrorist, you deserve to be dead.**

There isn't an insult in this world that has not yet been said.

You see, I refuse to be another girl who is opened up and read.

Read like a book.

Read for pleasure and leisure then placed back onto the dusty shelf.

**Oppressed, submissive, subjugated young girl.**

Little do they know that I am a pearl.

It's all a reaction to the cloth wrapped around my head.

I hear your words.

I don't feel your dread.

**It's not possible for a girl to feel freer dressed modestly.**

But I feel as free as a bird.

My words are listened to and I am actually heard.

**Ashamed of your body, you walk with vain.**

I'm sorry for the amount of ignorance in your brain.

You don't understand that your thoughts are profane.

Some things are not meant for everybody to see.

I stand here right now and give you the opportunity to judge me.

Judge me for the words I say and the things I do.

Forget the length of my waist and the pounds that I weigh.

Do not judge me with your ignorant mentality.

Do not judge me the same way you judge the rest of society.

Judge me for who I am.

**You live in the west and you are free so why are you afraid of your femininity. **

Afraid? I am not, I just have a different interpretation of femininity.

You see those girls in the billboards and magazines?

Yeah, well their lives are not for me.

My nose fits just right between my unsymmetrical eyes.

My skin tone is just fine and my smile does not need to be airbrushed.

I am perfect in the eyes of God.

You're freedom is not the same as mine.

I am free.

I am liberated.

I am not terrorized or violated.

I am a Palestinian American living in the west.

I am not a flower, I am a pearl.

I am a jewel of high-exceptional value.

I am too beautiful to be put on display.

**Just take that thing off.**

I refuse to surrender my individuality to the will of the majority.

I stand tall with pride, dignity, beauty, and respect.

I am not oppressed, submissive or subjugated.

**It's a shame the way you cover up yourself.**

I do not need any one's approval to be myself and fulfill what I believe.

My hijab protects me from harm, injury and mischief.

My hijab is a part of me, the most pure, modest and beautiful part of me that no longer needs the acceptance of the will of the majority .  

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