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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
Fire
Come
Men
Daughter

More quotes by Warsan Shire

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My heart is a flower blossoming out of my mouth.
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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.
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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.
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My name is indigenous to my country, it is not easy to pronounce, it takes effort to say correctly and I am absolutely in love with the sound of it and its meaning. Also, it's not the kind of name you baby, slip into sweet talk mid sentence, late night phone conversation, whisper into the receiver kind of name, so, of that I am glad.
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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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Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.
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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.
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My alone feels so good, I'll only have you if you're sweeter than my solitude.
Warsan Shire
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You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.
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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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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’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 have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes on my face they are still together.
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.
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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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I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.
Warsan Shire
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You can't make homes out of human beings.
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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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
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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