Kim

- 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, What They Did Later That Afternoon

You are a horse running alone
And he tries to tame you
Compares you to an impossible highway
To a burning house
Says you are blinding him
That he could never leave you
Forget you
Want anything but you
You dizzy him
You are unbearable
Every woman before or after you is doused in your name
You fill his mouth
His teeth ache with memory of taste
His body just a long shadow seeking yours
But you are always intense
Frightening in the way you want him
Unashamed and sacrificial...
-Warsan Shire, For Women Who Are Difficult To Love

This is all I know how to do
Carry loss around until I resemble every bad memory,
Every terrible fear, every nightmare anyone has ever had.
-Warsan Shire, The Unbearable Weight of Staying


I wouldn't want to be in a world where you don't exist.
-Warsan Shire, And Were You Being Good To Yourself?


You are terrifying and strange and beautiful
Something not everyone knows how to love.
-Warsan Shire, For Women Who Are Difficult To Love


You should move on
Your heart is playing musical statues
Waiting for the song to come back on
But everyone has left the party
And even the sun has turn it's back on you.
-Warsan Shire, You Should Move On

How far have you walked for men
Who've never held you 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 they could taste the desperate on your skin?
... How are you both these women, both flighty and needful?
-Warsan Shire, Questions For The Woman I Was Last Night


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 clippings from an old mug
Then pray my tongue into a bowl of holy water
And ask god never to leave you thirsty.
-Warsan Shire, The 'I Like You' Poem


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, Day Four

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, Under Their Breath, Someone Said