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I want to love, but my hair smells of war and running and running.

Warsan Shire

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Warsan Shire
Age: 36
Born: 1988
Born: January 1
Poet
Writer
Republic of Kenya
Smells
Smell
Hair
War
Running
Love

More quotes by Warsan Shire

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To my daughter I will say, ‘when the men come, set yourself on fire.’
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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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.
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You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.
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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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I have my mother’s mouth and my father’s eyes on my face they are still together.
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I tend to the wound so often, it never heals.
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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 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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At the end of the day, it isn’t where I came from. Maybe home is somewhere I’m going and never have been before.
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I belong deeply to myself.
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How far have you walked for men who've never held your feet in their laps?
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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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I am a lover without a lover. I am lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself.
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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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Make peace with your body, it's not manmade, there are no flaws, there are no mistakes.
Warsan Shire