“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.” WorldInspirationalPoetry Author:Warsan Shire
“Later that night, I held an atlas on my lap, ran my fingers across the whole world, and whispered, ‘where does it hurt?’ It answered, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.” WorldDoeWholeNightHurtFingersWhole WorldRanIt HurtsLapAtlasShire Author: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.” KnowsWorldTryingKindPersonsDoeMomentsTogetherFilmFacesSongThreeLinesForgetKnow HowHappenedMinutesKissingPhotographPoetry IsNever ForgetPortraitsChanging Your LifeForget ItSlapBrevity Author: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.” PeopleWorldLoveTwoHonestBlameStrangerBetrayalLife And LoveSaddestShire Author: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.” PeopleWorldKindLongBodyMovingTimeUniverseSadWoundsPaceWetAcheStagnantUnhappy PeopleMiserable PeopleGift Of Time Author:Warsan Shire
“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.” IfsWorldWantEnoughMomentsHandsBeautifulNamesLanguagePerfectMorningSunFiveMouthsUnderstoodFingersBeautiful ThingsVery BeautifulFive Fingers Author: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.” WorldLeftHurtSecretLike YouMaking LoveWretchedBeen Hurt Author:Warsan Shire
