Warsan Shire Quotes & Sayings

The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world. — Warsan Shire

We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there. — Warsan Shire

You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her,
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?

What man wants to lie 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 things.

But God,
doesn't she wear
the world well? — Warsan Shire

Two people who were once very close can
without blame
or grand betrayal
become strangers.
perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world. — Warsan Shire

i gut fruit with my mouth
push tongue into black belly of papaya
peel lychee with teeth
bite into ripe pear
suck on stone of mango
all of this, over the kitchen sink
barefoot
middle of winter
sticky hands pushing hair away from face
moaning into sweet flesh
the whole time
your name flat against the roof of my mouth. — Warsan Shire

You can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that — Warsan Shire

Essentially, if our secrets are secrets because we are told to be ashamed, then we must share them. There is no shame in being sad or struggling or trying to heal. We are all desperate, depraved and sacred. We are all terrible and brillIant. I can list all the things that can make a girl want to escape her own body (re: patriarchy). But I'd rather list all the things that make me want to stay in my body, and adorn it like a home, rub oils into my skin, tell it how sorry I am for trying to leave, for trying to hurt it into submission — Warsan Shire

I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you're young and asleep. Look at all these borders foaming at the mouth with bodies broken and desperate ... I spent days and nights in the stomach of the truck; I did not come out the same. Sometimes it feels like someone else is wearing my body. — Warsan Shire

By the time I've finished with you,
you won't know whether you've been kissed or cut,
whether you were loved or butchered.
and either way you probably won't care,
just grateful you came close enough to touch. — Warsan Shire

You were a city exiled from skin, your mouth a burning church. — Warsan Shire

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. — Warsan Shire

I give myself five days to forget you.
on the first day i rust.
on the second i wilt.
on the third day i sit with friends but i think about your tongue.
i clean my room on the fourth day. i clean my body on the fourth day.
i try to replace your scent on the fourth day.
the fifth day, i adorn myself like the mouth of an inmate.
a wedding singer dressed in borrowed gold.
the midas of cheap metal.
tinsel in the middle of summer.
crevice glitter, two days after the party.
i glow the way unwanted things do,
a neon sign that reads;
come, i still taste like someone else's mouth. — Warsan Shire

Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same. — Warsan Shire

I belong deeply to myself. — Warsan Shire

My heart is a flower blossoming out of my mouth. — Warsan Shire

My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude. — Warsan Shire

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. — Warsan Shire

His eyes were the same colour as the sea in a postcard someone sends you when they love you, but not enough to stay. — Warsan Shire

Perhaps, the problem is not the intensity of your love, but the quality of the people you are loving. — Warsan Shire

With you, intimacy colors my voice. Even 'hello' sounds like 'come here'. — Warsan Shire

Where did you get those big eyes?
My mother.
And where did you get those lips?
My mother.
And the loneliness?
My mother.
And that broken heart?
My mother.
And the absence, where did you get that?
My father. — Warsan Shire

I won't glorify or romanticise heartbreak, for me it was a kind of death and I was forced to keep living. — Warsan Shire

Poetry is like a portrait of a moment or person, and the poem is almost like looking at a photograph; it slaps you in the face and kisses you at the same time. Nothing else does that, with that brevity. Songs try to do it, but that's three minutes. A poem, you read it and it kind of changes your life and you don't know how it happened and you can never forget it. It's like the best song lyric, the best line from a film-everything in the world that's short and great put together. — Warsan Shire

How far have you walked for men who've never held your feet in their laps?
how often have you bartered with bone, only to sell yourself short?
why do you find the unavailable so alluring?
where did it begin? what went wrong? and who made you feel so worthless?
if they wanted you, wouldn't they have chosen you?
all this time, you were begging for love silently, thinking they couldn't hear you, but they smelt it on you, you must have known that they could taste the desperate on your skin?
and what about the others that would do anything for you, why did you make them love you until you could not stand it?
how are you both of these women, both flighty and needful?
where did you learn this, to want what does not want you?
where did you learn this, to leave those that want to stay? — Warsan Shire

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. — Warsan Shire

Did you tell people that songs weren't the same as a warm body, a soft mouth? — Warsan Shire

Make peace with your body, it's not manmade, there are no flaws, there are no mistakes. — Warsan Shire

Later that night she picked the polish off
with her front teeth until the bed you shared
for seven years seemed speckled with glitter
and blood. — Warsan Shire

I want to make love, but my hair smells of war and running and running. — Warsan Shire

For the fifth time this month
you say you're going to leave him
he calls you a cunt over the phone
then walks the three miles to your house
and kisses your mouth until the word is just
a place on your body.
i don't know what brings broken people together
maybe damage seeks out damage
the way stains on a mattress halo into one another
the way stains on a mattress bleed into each other. — Warsan Shire

When I love, I love: wholly, thoroughly, completely, drowning in everything. Every glance can be a conversation, eyes just playing and saying what needs to be said. Silence is loud, and the air becomes heavy. I want you. I want all of you. — Warsan Shire

Her body is one long sigh. — Warsan Shire

You tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love
split his head open?
you can't make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love. — Warsan Shire

Give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. my name makes you want to tell me the truth. my name doesn't allow me to trust anyone that cannot pronounce it right. — Warsan Shire

There's nothing rebellious about loving something that can't love you. You're a woman, you should have known that men in the city would split you in half searching for their fathers in between your legs. — Warsan Shire

Your mouth is a lonely place but i keep coming back. — Warsan Shire

Well, I think home spat me out, the blackouts and curfews like tongue against loose tooth. God, do you know how difficult it is, to talk about the day your own city dragged you by the hair, past the old prison, past the school gates, past the burning torsos erected on poles like flags? When I meet others like me I recognise the longing, the missing, the memory of ash on their faces. No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. I've been carrying the old anthem in my mouth for so long that there's no space for another song, another tongue or another language. I know a shame that shrouds, totally engulfs. I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel. I'm bloated with language I can't afford to forget. — Warsan Shire

No one leaves home unless homes is the mouth of a shark. — Warsan Shire

I tend to the wound so often, it never heals. — Warsan Shire

On the night of our secret wedding
when he held me in his mouth like a promise
until his tongue grew tired and fell asleep,
I lay awake to keep the memory alive.
In the morning I begged him back to bed.
Running late, he kissed my ankles and left.
I stayed like a secret in his bed for days
until his mother found me.
I showed her my gold ring,
I stood in front of her naked,
waved my hands in her face.
She sank to the floor and cried.
At his funeral, no one knew my name.
I sat behind his aunts,
they sucked on dates soaked in oil.
The last thing he tasted was me. — Warsan Shire

You haven't healed, I can tell from how cruel you are. — Warsan Shire

The only darkness we should allow into our lives is the night, for even then, we have the moon. — Warsan Shire

I learn urgently
the architecture of loss
then find you again. — Warsan Shire

I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing. I am the sin of memory and the absence of memory. I watch the news and my mouth becomes a sink full of blood. The lines, the forms, the people at the desks, the calling cards, the immigration officers, the looks on the street, the cold settling deep into my bones, the English classes at night, the distance I am from home. But Alhamdulilah all of this is better than the scent of a woman completely on fire, or a truckload of men, who look like my father pulling out my teeth and nails, or fourteen men between my legs, or a gun, or a promise, or a lie, or his name, or his manhood in my mouth. — Warsan Shire

I have my mother's mouth and my father's eyes; on my face they are
still together. — Warsan Shire

Growing up, I absolutely wanted a name that was easier to pronounce, more common, prettier. But then I grew up and understood the power of a name, the beauty that comes in understanding how your name has affected who you are. My name is indigenous to my country, it is not easy to pronounce, it takes effort to say correctly and I am absolutely in love with the sound of it and its meaning. Also, it's not the kind of name you baby, slip into sweet talk mid sentence, late night phone conversation, whisper into the receiver kind of name, so, of that I am glad. — Warsan Shire

To my daughter I will say, when men come, set yourself on fire. — Warsan Shire

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. — Warsan Shire

I hear them say go home, I hear them say fucking immigrants, fucking refugees. Are they really this arrogant? Do they not know that stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second; the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. All I can say is, I was once like you, the apathy, the pity, the ungrateful placement and now my home is the mouth of a shark, now my home is the barrel of a gun. I'll see you on the other side. — Warsan Shire

The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do. — Warsan Shire

If it'll keep my heart soft, break my heart every day. — Warsan Shire

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. — Warsan Shire

Your grandparents often found themselves in dark rooms, mapping out each other's bodies, claiming whole countries with their mouths. — Warsan Shire

to love and lose and still be kind — Warsan Shire

Why do you live in your body like you will be given another? As if it were temporary. You starve it, you let anyone touch it, you berate it. Tell it that it should be completely different. You tug at your soft flesh, wish it thinner, wish it gone. You fall in love with those who praise the way it sighs under their hands, but who praises the way it holds up your weight, even when you are falling apart? — Warsan Shire

I'm sorry you were not truly loved and that it made you cruel. — Warsan Shire

You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, someone not everyone knows how to love. — Warsan Shire

Light attracts light. But sometimes your light attracts moths and your warmth attracts parasites. Protect your space and energy — Warsan Shire

You were like an ulcer on the inside of my cheek that my tongue could not stop touching.
loving you was like watching a stranger clean a week old wound; i felt sick, but i wanted more. — Warsan Shire

Not everyone is okay with living like an open wound. But the thing about open wounds is that, well, you aren't ignoring it. You're healing; the fresh air can get to it. It's honest. You aren't hiding who you are. You aren't rotting. People can give you advice on how to heal without scarring badly. But on the other hand there are some people who'll feel uncomfortable around you. Some will even point and laugh. But we all have wounds. — Warsan Shire

I don't know when love became elusive
what i know, is that no one i know has it
my fathers arms around my mothers neck
fruit too ripe to eat, a door half way open
when your name is a just a hand i can never hold
everything i have ever believed in, becomes magic.
i think of lovers as trees, growing to and
from one another searching for the same light,
my mothers laughter in a dark room,
a photograph greying under my touch,
this is all i know how to do, carry loss around until
i begin to resemble every bad memory,
every terrible fear,
every nightmare anyone has ever had.
i ask did you ever love me?
you say of course, of course so quickly
that you sound like someone else
i ask are you made of steel? are you made of iron?
you cry on the phone, my stomach hurts
i let you leave, i need someone who knows how to stay. — Warsan Shire

I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself. — Warsan Shire

No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. — Warsan Shire

Make love like you have no secrets like you've never been left never been hurt like the world don't owe you a single wretched thing. — Warsan Shire

Every mouth you've ever kissed was just practice. All the bodies you've ever undressed and ploughed in to were preparing you for me. I don't mind tasting them in the memory of your mouth.
Was it a long journey? Did it take you long to find me?
You're here now, welcome home. — Warsan Shire

Apathy is the same as war, it all kills you, she says. Slow like cancer in the breast or fast like a machete in the neck. — Warsan Shire

Fit in here, in my palm, in my shadow, don't be bigger than my idea of you, don't be more beautiful than i can accept, don't be more human than i am willing to allow you to be and be quiet, you're too loud, even your un-belonging is loud. quiet your dreams, your voice, your hair, quiet your skin, quiet your displacement, quiet your longing, your colour, quiet your walk, your eyes. who said you could look at me like that? who said you could exist without permission? why are you even here? why aren't you shrinking? i think of you often. you vibrate. you walk into a room and the temperature changes. i lean in and almost recognise you as human. but, no. we can't have that. — Warsan Shire

stability is like a lover with a sweet mouth upon your body one second; the next you are a tremor lying on the floor covered in rubble and old currency waiting for its return. — Warsan Shire

The Kitchen





Half a papaya and a palmful of sesame oil;
lately, your husband's mind has been elsewhere.

Honeyed dates, goat's milk;
you want to quiet the bloating of salt.

Coconut and ghee butter;
he kisses the back of your neck at the stove.

Cayenne and roasted pine nuts;
you offer him the hollow of your throat.

Saffron and rosemary;
you don't ask him her name.

Vine leaves and olives;
you let him lift you by the waist.

Cinnamon and tamarind;
lay you down on the kitchen counter.

Almonds soaked in rose water;
your husband is hungry.

Sweet mangoes and sugared lemon;
he had forgotten the way you taste.

Sour dough and cumin;
but she cannot make him eat, like you. — Warsan Shire

If you gave me
half a moon of a chance
i would
kiss the incisors
out of your mouth, clean
and hold them in my
own, like chippings
from an old mug
then
pray my tongue into
a bowl of holy water
and ask god to never
leave you thirsty. — Warsan Shire

We emotionally manipulated each other until we thought it was love. — Warsan Shire

It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not about how desirable you find me. — Warsan Shire

There is no intimacy like that between two women who have chosen to be sisters. — Warsan Shire

I've heard people using your songs as prayer, begging god in falsetto. — Warsan Shire

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. — Warsan Shire