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 her how to tie her hair like rope and smoke it over burning frankincense. You made her gargle rosewater and while she coughed, said macaanto girls like you shouldn’t smell of lonely or empty. 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 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 things but God, doesn’t she wear the world well.
Warsan Shire
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More Warsan Shire
two people who were once very close can without blame or grand betrayal become strang... WARSAN SHIRE later that night i held an atlas in my lap ran my fingers across the whole world a... WARSAN SHIRE It's not my responsibility to be beautiful. I'm not alive for that purpose. My existence is not abou... WARSAN SHIRE Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself - what you’re wearing, who you’re aroun... WARSAN SHIRE His eyes were the same colour as the sea in a postcard someone sends you when they love you, but not... WARSAN SHIRE At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never h... WARSAN SHIRE My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude. WARSAN SHIRE all those nights with the phone warming the side of my face like the sun. WARSAN SHIRE give your daughters difficult names. give your daughters names that command the full use of tongue. ... WARSAN SHIRE you can't make homes out of human beings someone should have already told you that WARSAN SHIRE the year of letting go, of understanding loss. grace. of the word ‘no’ and also being able to sa... WARSAN SHIRE you are a horse running alone and he tries to tame you compares you to an impossible highw... WARSAN SHIRE every mouth you’ve ever kissed was just practice all the bodies you’ve ever undressed<... WARSAN SHIRE make love like you have no secrets like you’ve never been left nev... WARSAN SHIRE The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to... WARSAN SHIRE I want to lay down, but these countries are like uncles who touch you when you're young and asleep. ... WARSAN SHIRE We emotionally manipulated each other until we thought it was love. WARSAN SHIRE We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there. WARSAN SHIRE But sometimes your light attracts moths and your warmth attracts parasites. Protect your space and e... WARSAN SHIRE Perhaps, the problem is not the intensity of your love, but the quality of the people you are loving... WARSAN SHIRE If it’ll keep my heart soft, break my heart every day. WARSAN SHIRE your mouth is a lonely place but i keep coming back. WARSAN SHIRE I’m not sad, but the boys who are looking for sad girls always find me. I’m not a girl anymore a... WARSAN SHIRE how far have you walked for men who’ve never held your feet in their laps? how often have you... WARSAN SHIRE Sad people have the gift of time, while the world dizzies everyone else; they remain stagnant, their... WARSAN SHIRE Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of ... WARSAN SHIRE You want me to be a tragic backdrop so that you can appear to be illuminated, so that people can say... WARSAN SHIRE The only darkness we should allow into our lives is the night, for even then, we have the moon. WARSAN SHIRE Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same. WARSAN SHIRE With you, intimacy colours my voice. even ‘hello’ sounds like ‘come here'. WARSAN SHIRE I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes; on my face they are still together. WARSAN SHIRE And were you being good to yourself? i don’t think so. but, i forgive you, girl, who tallied ... WARSAN SHIRE I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself. WARSAN SHIRE all the girls you’ve ever loved, i think i loved them too. interlude for the grand sonata WARSAN SHIRE The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understoo... WARSAN SHIRE I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappeari... WARSAN SHIRE I want to make love, but my hair smells of war and running and running. WARSAN SHIRE By the time I’ve finished with you, you won’t know whether you’ve been kissed or cut,... WARSAN SHIRE all those nights with the phone warming the side of my face like the sun. you made jokes and sure, i... WARSAN SHIRE You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole. WARSAN SHIRE fit in here, in my palm, in my shadow, don’t be bigger than my idea of you, don’t be more beauti... WARSAN SHIRE for the fifth time this month you say you’re going to leave him he calls you a cunt over... WARSAN SHIRE You are terrifying and strange and beautiful, someone not everyone knows how to love. WARSAN SHIRE I could have lived off all the male careers in my family. Everybody was always getting ovations, but... TALIA SHIRE Our past is who we are, and death is one of our experiences. I lost my husband a long time ago, but ... TALIA SHIRE I have a feeling when I'm 80 years old I'm going to get a phone call: There's going to b... TALIA SHIRE I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself. WARSON SHIRE