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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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Warsan Shire
Age: 36
Born: 1988
Born: January 1
Poet
Writer
Republic of Kenya
Glorify
Heartbreak
Forced
Living
Death
Keep
Kind

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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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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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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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
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With you, intimacy colors my voice. Even 'hello' sounds like 'come here'.
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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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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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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Your mouth is a lonely place but I keep coming back.
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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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
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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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You are terrifying, and strange, and beautiful. Something not everyone knows how to love.
Warsan Shire
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I belong deeply to myself.
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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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
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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.
Warsan Shire