Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Warsan Shire
Age: 36
Born: 1988
Born: January 1
Poet
Writer
Republic of Kenya
Give
Anyone
Command
Right
Use
Tongue
Giving
Difficult
Allow
Tell
Daughter
Makes
Trust
Doesn
Name
Shire
Cannot
Full
Pronounce
Truth
Names
Daughters

More quotes by Warsan Shire

Image
How far have you walked for men who've never held your feet in their laps?
Warsan Shire
Image
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
Image
The ego hurts you like this: you become obsessed with the one person who does not love you. blind to the rest who do.
Warsan Shire
Image
To my daughter I will say, ‘when the men come, set yourself on fire.’
Warsan Shire
Image
My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.
Warsan Shire
Image
Every mouth you’ve ever kissed was just practice. All the bodies you’ve ever undressed and ploughed in to were preparing you for me. I don’t mind tasting them in the memory of your mouth. Was it a long journey? Did it take you long to find me? You’re here now, welcome home.
Warsan Shire
Image
I know a few things to be true. I do not know where I am going, where I have come from is disappearing, I am unwelcome and my beauty is not beauty here. My body is burning with the shame of not belonging, my body is longing.
Warsan Shire
Image
I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.
Warsan Shire
Image
Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself - what you're wearing, who you're around, what you're doing. Recreate and repeat.
Warsan Shire
Image
Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.
Warsan Shire
Image
With you, intimacy colors my voice. Even 'hello' sounds like 'come here'.
Warsan Shire
Image
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
Image
We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there.
Warsan Shire
Image
I belong deeply to myself.
Warsan Shire
Image
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
Image
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.
Warsan Shire
Image
Perhaps, the problem is not the intensity of your love, but the quality of the people you are loving.
Warsan Shire
Image
I want to love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.
Warsan Shire
Image
I won't glorify or romanticise heartbreak, for me it was a kind of death and I was forced to keep living.
Warsan Shire
Image
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