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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

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Warsan Shire
Age: 36
Born: 1988
Born: January 1
Poet
Writer
Republic of Kenya
Desirable
Feminism
Responsibility
Alive
Existence
Purpose
Beautiful
Find
Shire

More quotes by Warsan Shire

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I’m overwhelmed. My biggest downfall is my brightest blessing, I feel too much, all the time. Ya Allah, if it’ll keep my heart soft, break my heart every day.
Warsan Shire
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I tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel once. I'm bloated with language I can’t afford to forget.
Warsan Shire
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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
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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
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And you tried to change, didn't you? Closed your mouth more. Tried to be softer, prettier, less volatile, less awake... 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
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I want to love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.
Warsan Shire
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With you, intimacy colors my voice. Even 'hello' sounds like 'come here'.
Warsan Shire
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To my daughter I will say, ‘when the men come, set yourself on fire.’
Warsan Shire
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Light attracts light. But sometimes your light attracts moths and your warmth attracts parasites. Protect your space and energy
Warsan Shire
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You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.
Warsan Shire
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There is no intimacy like that between two women who have chosen to be sisters.
Warsan Shire
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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
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Give your daughters difficult names. Give your daughters names that command the full use of the 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
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I think in Somali, I cuss in Somali, when I'm afraid I reach for somali and this language is very rich, very filling. It's an unflinching language the crudest most terrible things sound perfectly normal in Somali.
Warsan Shire
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I won't glorify or romanticise heartbreak, for me it was a kind of death and I was forced to keep living.
Warsan Shire
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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
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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
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My heart is a flower blossoming out of my mouth.
Warsan Shire
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I tend to the wound so often, it never heals.
Warsan Shire
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You can't make homes out of human beings.
Warsan Shire