Warsan Shire

“We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there.”

“Later that night she picked the polish offwith her front teeth until the bed you sharedfor seven years seemed speckled with glitterand blood.”

“Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself - what you’re wearing, who you’re around, what you’re doing. Recreate and repeat.”

“Your daughter is ugly.She knows loss intimately,carries whole cities in her belly.As a child, relatives wouldn’t hold her.She was splintered wood and sea water.They said she reminded them of the war.On her fifteenth birthday you taught herhow to tie her hair like rope and smoke it over burning frankincense.You made her gargle rosewaterand while she coughed, saidmacaanto girls like you shouldn’t smellof lonely or empty.You are her mother.Why did you not warn her,hold her like a rotting boatand tell her that men will not love herif she is covered in continents,if her teeth are small colonies,if her stomach is an islandif her thighs are borders?What man wants to lay down and watch the world burn in his bedroom? Your daughter’s face is a small riot,her hands are a civil war,a refugee camp behind each ear,a body littered with ugly thingsbut God, doesn’t she wearthe world well.”

“Loving you was like going to war I never came back the same.”

“Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers.”

“No one leaves home unless homes is the mouth of a shark.”

“Don't assume, ask. Be kind. Tell the truth. Don't say anything you can't stand behind fully. Have integrity. Tell people how you feel.”

“Did you tell people that songs weren’t the same as a warm body, a soft mouth?”

“I want to make love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.”

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”

“Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body.”

“later that night i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world and whispered where does it hurt?it answered everywhere everywhere everywhere.”

“The only darkness we should allow into our lives is the night, for even then, we have the moon.”

“With you, intimacy colours my voice.even ‘hello’ sounds like ‘come here'.”

“You are her mother.Why did you not warn her,hold her like a rotting boatand tell her that men will not love herif she is covered in continents,if her teeth are small colonies,if her stomach is an islandif her thighs are borders?What man wants to lie downand watch the world burnin his bedroom?Your daughter ’s face is a small riot,her hands are a civil war,a refugee camp behind each ear,a body littered with ugly things.But God,doesn’t she wearthe world well?”

“How far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps?”

“Sad people have the gift of time, while the world dizzies everyone else; they remain stagnant, their bodies refusing to follow pace with the universe. With these kind of people everything aches for too long, everything moves without rush, wounds are always wet.”

“[…] but she cannot make him eat, like you.”

“At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.”