Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head Quotes

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“I want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark. Home is the barrel of a gun. No one would leave home unless home chased you to the shore. No one would leave home until home is a voice in your ear saying--leave, run, now. I don't know what I've become.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“No one puts their children in a boat, unless the water is safer than the land.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems

“At each and every checkpoint the refugee is asked are you human? The refugee is sure it’s still human but worries that overnight, while it slept, there may have been a change in classification.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems

“Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women.
Sometimes, the men--they come with keys,
and sometimes, the men--they come with hammers.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“BLESS THE MOON
Forgive us, we blamed you
for floods, for the flush of blood,
for men who are also wolves, even
though you could pull the tide in
by her hair, we tell everyone
we walked all over you. We
blame you for the dark, as if you had
a choice, performing just beyond
the glass, distant and adored,
near but alone, cold and unimaginable
following us home. We use you
to see our blue bodies beneath
your damp light, we let you watch,
swollen against the glass as we move
against one another like fish.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“From time to time mothers in the wild devour their young,
an appetite born of pure, bright need.
Occasionally,
mothers from ordinary homes, much like our own, feed on the viscid shame their daughters are forced to secrete from glands formed in the favor of men.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“Under your feet, the trapdoor to heaven
opens its mouth, its teeth
grazing your toes.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“The refugee's heart often grows
an outer layer. An assimilation.
It cocoons the organ. Those unable to grow the extra skin
die within the first six months in a host country.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“Hooyo, patron saint of
my children have different passports to me.
Hooyo, blessed saint of
raising them too far from home.

I don't recognize my own children
they speak and dream in the wrong language
as much as I understand
it may as well be the language of birds.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“You only leave home when home won't let you stay.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“ASSIMILATION We never unpacked, dreaming in the wrong language, carrying our mother’s fears in our feet— if he raises his voice we will flee if he looks bored we will pack our bags unable to excise the refugee from our hearts, unable to sleep through the night. The refugee’s heart has six chambers. In the first is your mother’s unpacked suitcase. In the second, your father cries into his hands. The third room is an immigration office, your severed legs in the fourth, in the fifth a uterus—yours? The sixth opens with the right papers. I can’t get the refugee out of my body, I bolt my body whenever I get the chance. How many pills does it take to fall asleep? How many to meet the dead? The refugee’s heart often grows an outer layer. An assimilation. It cocoons the organ. Those unable to grow the extra skin die within the first six months in a host country. At each and every checkpoint the refugee is asked are you human? The refugee is sure it’s still human but worries that overnight, while it slept, there may have been a change in classification.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems

“Occasionally,
mothers from ordinary
homes, much like our
own, feed on the viscid
shame their daughters
are forced to secrete
from glands formed
in the favor of men.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“I bolt my body whenever I get the chance. How many pills does it take to fall asleep? How many to meet the dead?”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems

“Rest your body, aabo,
heavy with distention, dreams lost in translation,

dreams of drifting in space, the rings of Saturn
around the neck of Layla, dreams macerated
under grief's gaze. Bless your drowsy blue slumber,
swayed by the patron saint of restlessness”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“Dear Uncle, is everything you love foreign or are you foreign to everything you love?”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“No one would choose to crawl under fences, beaten until your shadow leaves, raped, forced off the boat because you are darker, drowned, sold, starved, shot at the border like a sick animal, pitied. No one would choose to make a refugee camp home for a year or two or ten, stripped and searched, finding prison everywhere. And if you were to survive, greeted on the other side--Go home Blacks, dirty refugees, sucking our country dry of milk, dark with their hands out, smell strange, savage, look what they've done to their own countries, what will they do to ours?”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“We lay our burden at your feet,
careful not to weigh you down,
from you, we are learning
to put ourselves first.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“From time to time mothers in the wild devour their young,
an appetite born of pure, bright need. Occasionally,
mothers from ordinary homes, much like our own, feed on the viscid shame their daughters are forced to secrete from glands formed
in the favor of men.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head

“No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark. You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well. The boy you went to school with, who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory, is holding a gun bigger than his body. You only leave home when home won’t let you stay.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems

“The refugee’s heart has six chambers. In the first is your mother’s unpacked suitcase. In the second, your father cries into his hands. The third room is an immigration office, your severed legs in the fourth, in the fifth a uterus—yours? The sixth opens with the right papers.”
― Warsan Shire, Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head: Poems