The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world.
Warsan ShireI tore up and ate my own passport in an airport hotel once. I'm bloated with language I canโt afford to forget.
Warsan ShireMy favourite people, biggest inspirations and closest friends are all women. Not a coincidence.
Warsan ShireI 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 ShireDon'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 ShireIโm not sad, but the boys who are looking for sad girls always find me. Iโm not a girl anymore and Iโm not sad anymore. You want me to be a tragic backdrop so that you can appear to be illuminated, so that people can say โWow, isn't he so terribly brave to love a girl who is so obviously sad?โ You think Iโll be the dark sky so you can be the star? Iโll swallow you whole.
Warsan Shire