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To my daughter I will say, ‘when the men come, set yourself on fire.’

Warsan Shire

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Warsan Shire
Age: 36
Born: 1988
Born: January 1
Poet
Writer
Republic of Kenya
Men
Daughter
Fire
Come

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My favourite people, biggest inspirations and closest friends are all women. Not a coincidence.
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Perhaps, the problem is not the intensity of your love, but the quality of the people you are loving.
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My heart is a flower blossoming out of my mouth.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.
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I tend to the wound so often, it never heals.
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There is no intimacy like that between two women who have chosen to be sisters.
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I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes on my face they are still together.
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I want to love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.
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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.
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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.
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How far have you walked for men who've never held your feet in their laps?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Two people who were once very close can without blame or grand betrayal become strangers. Perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.
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We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there.
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