you are a horse running alone
and he tries to tame you
compares you to an impossible highwayto a burning housesays you are blinding him that he could never leave you
forget you want anything but you
you dizzy him, you are unbearableevery 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 too intense frightening in the way you want him unashamed and sacrificial he tells you that no man can live up to the one who lives in your head and you tried to change didn't you?
closed your mouth more tried to be softer prettierless 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....

“I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes;
on my face they are
still 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

HOME**

(a poem by Warsan Shire. She is a 23 year-old Somali born, London-based author and educator. This poem has been posted all over the internet. I found this copy in a revolutionary journal called, “A World To Win News Service” their web address is;   http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/AWorldToWinNewsService/)

no one leaves home unless
home is the mouth of a shark
you only run for the border
when you see the whole city running as well
your neighbors running faster than you?
breath ****** in their throats
the boy you went to school with
who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory
is holding a gun bigger than his body
you only leave home
when home won’t let you stay.
no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilet
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles traveled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied
no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the go home blacks
refugees
***** immigrants
asylum seekers
******* our country dry
******* with their hands out
they smell strange

savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the ***** looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child's body
in pieces.


i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans

drown
save
be hungry
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-leave,
run away from me now
i don't know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

class in 3 hours meaning I have to wake up in 2, but I woke up suddenly.
The way you do when there's a streak of lightning or rumble of thunder that catches you off guard. Well, I must've dreamt of you, because I awoke asking Is this really happening? Trying to deny the words soon as they left his mouth. Sitting there with a smile just so he wouldn't think I hated him because he knew the words were going to hurt. Him avoiding eye contact as if that'd lessen the blow. There's nothing that's changed about the way I feel about our friendship. I can't say the same. Because it's 6:02am and I had to leave the room so my roommate wouldn't wake up to me crying, blowing my nose. Just like I had to leave the room and cry in a stairwell last night. I tried reading Warsan Shire, tried listening to Jhene Aiko, I tried, but as I watch the sky looking for something, anything, there's nothing. I'm sick of nothing. I'm so sick of men reeling me in just to drop me off before we make the destination. Sick of me being someone to pass the time with. Something's wrong with me. The tear that just nipped my right ear verified that. I am no ones lover, maybe I'll never be.
I just thought he was different.

*whats wrong love? you look like you've lost your best friend...

You'll write their name on your tired body with permanent ink and call it love
Because Aunty said it's beyond what the eye can  see but what the body can feel.
Itll take you months to learn its not the same thing to create this.        
You'll try to make them stay with your wet mouth, with those trembling hands, wisper all the things that would make you stay in that husky voice
But warsan said you cant make homes out of people
And your new mantra is "nothing in this world belongs to me I release it all"  
But you keep it all in slit like creases in your scattered messy heart, and your tender thighs,
And your static and wandering mind.
and my love? My lover? Dont you see the only thing you're letting go of is yourself.

i was reading warsan shire
when i got your message
and my foundation shook underneath me
the foundation i built
after the earthquake that was you
and i must have reread it
a thousand times
and i must have thought up
a thousand responses
but never sent one because to do that is
a sign of weakness all my friends tell me
and i can never show weakness or falter
but what about the weakness
you exposed in me
the cracks you chipped further
with your brutal axe
and i can remember the way it felt
to hear you say the words
to know that you let another girl
touch you like i used to
how my chest caved in on itself
and for a while there i lost myself
because i didn’t know who i was
without your name attached to mine
and you have a new girl now
one who doesn’t hold the stars in her eyes
for you like i did
and i’ve ****** my fair share of guys
trying to get the taste of your mouth
out of mine
and my throat is bursting
with things i want to say
words words words
with no meaning except anger and hatred
but i know it would all be for a boy
who couldn’t even tell me my middle name
so i keep it inside me
and they say you should never hold in anything
for fear of coming undone at the seams
but i’m the one
who stitched myself back together
and found my footing again
without you
and i pierced my ears
and got that tattoo on my back
not for you
but to separate myself from you
separate myself from the girl who
would gladly sit underneath your thumb
and i used to count anniversaries but now
i just count days since
and it’s been three months since
you took away a part of me
but it’s a piece that i no longer need
so save it for a day when
she doesn’t fit your mold of a perfect woman
when you remember how much i loved you
for free

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