Warsanshire Quotes

requiem
posted a quote
July 12, 2020 8:45am UTC

"You tried to change, didn't you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do, love?
split his head open?
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."
- WARSAN SHIRE

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seafoam*
posted a quote
September 6, 2017 5:16pm UTC

(( d o n ' t s e t t l e F O R H I M b e c a u s e h e t h i n k s ))
You're BeauTiFuL
& Y O U T H I N K N O O N E E L S E W I L L F I N D Y O U B E A U T I F U L .

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seafoam*
posted a quote
June 20, 2017 6:55pm UTC

“i hope i’ll always believe in love. even if love shames me and tries to destroy me, i hope i’ll want to start again.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
December 31, 2016 11:46am UTC

the year of letting go, of understanding loss. grace. of the word ‘no’ and also being able to say ‘you are not kind’. the year of humanity/humility. when the whole world couldn’t get out of bed. everyone i’ve met this year, says the same thing ‘you are so easy to be around, how do you do that?’. the year i broke open and dug out all the rot with my own hands. the year i learnt small talk. and how to smile at strangers. the year i understood that i am my best when i reach out and ask ‘do you want to be my friend?’. the year of sugar, everywhere. softness. sweetness. honey honey. the year of being alone, and learning how much i like it. the year of hugging people i don’t know, because i want to know them. the year i made peace and love, right here.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 25, 2016 7:26pm UTC

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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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 24, 2016 7:11pm UTC

THERE’S NOTHING REBELLIOUS ABOUT LOVING SOMETHING THAT CAN’T LOVE YOU. YOU’RE A WOMAN, YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN THAT MEN IN THE CITY WOULD SPLIT YOU IN HALF SEARCHING FOR THEIR FATHERS IN BETWEEN YOUR LEGS.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 24, 2016 7:03pm UTC

His eyes were the same color as the sea in a postcard someone sends you when they love you, but not enough to stay.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 24, 2016 6:55pm UTC

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

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 24, 2016 6:53pm UTC

you were like an ulcer on the inside of my cheek that my tongue could not stop touching.
loving you was like watching a stranger clean a week old wound; i felt sick, but i wanted more.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 24, 2016 6:52pm UTC

you must wear it like she wears
disappointment on her face
you must hide the surprise of
tasting other men on your lips
your mother is a woman
and women like her cannot be contained.
you find the black tube inside her beauty case,
where she keeps
your fathers old prison letters,
you desperately want to look like her
film star beauty,
you hold your hand against your throat
your mother was most beautiful
when sprawled out on the floor
half naked and bleeding.
you go to the bathroom to apply the lipstick,
somewhere no one can find you
your teeth look brittle against
the deep red slickness
you smile like an infant,
your mouth is a wound
you look nothing like your mother
you look everything like your mother.
you call your ex boyfriend,
sit on the toilet seat and listen to
the phone ring, when he picks up
you say his name slow
he says i thought i told you to stop calling me
you lick your lips,
you taste like years of being alone.
— HOW TO WEAR YOUR MOTHER'S LIPSTICK

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 24, 2016 6:51pm UTC

On the night of our secret wedding
when he held me in his mouth like a promise
until his tongue grew tired and fell asleep,
I lay awake to keep the memory alive.
In the morning I begged him back to bed.
Running late, he kissed my ankles and left.
I stayed like a secret in his bed for days
until his mother found me.
I showed her my gold ring,
I stood in front of her naked,
waved my hands in her face.
She sank to the floor and cried.
At his funeral, no one knew my name.
I sat behind his aunts,
they sucked on dates soaked in oil.
The last thing he tasted was me.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 23, 2016 7:56pm UTC

fit in here, in my palm, in my shadow, don’t be bigger than my idea of you, don’t be more beautiful than i can accept, don’t be more human than i am willing to allow you to be and be quiet, you’re too loud, even your un-belonging is loud. quiet your dreams, your voice, your hair, quiet your skin, quiet your displacement, quiet your longing, your color, quiet your walk, your eyes. who said you could look at me like that? who said you could exist without permission? why are you even here? why aren’t you shrinking? i think of you often. you vibrate. you walk into a room and the temperature changes. i lean in and almost recognize you as human. but, no. we can’t have that.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 23, 2016 7:39pm UTC

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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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 23, 2016 7:32pm UTC

and were you being
good to yourself? i don’t think so. but, i forgive you, girl, who tallied stretch marks into reasons why no one should get close. i forgive you, silly girl, sweet breath, decent by default. i forgive you for being afraid. did everything betray you? even the rain you love so much made rust out of your jewelry? i forgive you, soft spoken girl speaking with fake brash voice, fooling no one. i see you, tender even on your hardest days. i forgive you, waiting for him to call, i forgive you, the diets and the cruel friends. especially for that one time you said ‘i f.ucking give up on love, it’s not worth it, i’d rather be alone forever’. you were just pretending, weren’t you? i know you didn’t mean that. your body, your mouth, your heart, made specifically for loving. sometimes the things we love, will kill us, but weren’t we dying anyway? i forgive you for being something that will eventually die. perishable goods, fading out slowly, little human, i wouldn’t want to be in a world where you don’t exist.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 22, 2016 9:40pm UTC

SOMETIMES IT FEELS
like someone else is
wearInG mY BoDY.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 20, 2016 8:57pm UTC

i
The morning you were made to leave she sat on the front steps, dress tucked between her thighs, a packet of Marlboro Lights near her bare feet, painting her nails until the polish curdled. Her mother phoned– ‘What do you mean he hit you? Your father hit me all the time but I never left him. He pays the bills and he comes home at night, what more do you want?’ Later that night she picked the polish off with her front teeth until the bed you shared for seven years seemed speckled with glitter and blood.
ii
On the drive to the hotel, you remember the funeral you went to as a little boy, double burial for a couple who burned to death in their bedroom. The wife had been visited by her husband’s lover, a young and beautiful woman who paraded her naked body in the couple’s kitchen, lifting her dress to expose breasts mottled with small fleshy marks, a back sucked and bruised, then dressed herself and walked out of the front door. The wife, waiting for her husband to come home, doused herself in lighter fluid. On his arrival she jumped on him, wrapping her legs around his torso. The husband, surprised at her sudden urge, carried his wife to the bedroom, where she straddled him on their bed, held his face against her chest and lit a match.
iii
A young man greets you in the elevator. He smiles like he has pennies hidden in his cheeks. You’re looking at his shoes when he says ‘the rooms in this hotel are sweltering. Last night in bed I swear I thought my body was on fire’.
Warsan Shire //
Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 20, 2016 8:36pm UTC

By the time I’ve finished with you,
you won’t know whether you’ve been kissed or cut,
whether you were loved or butchered.
and either way you probably won’t care,
just grateful you came close enough to touch.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 20, 2016 8:27pm UTC

for the fifth time this month
you say you’re going to leave him
he calls you a c.unt over the phone
then walks the three miles to your house
and kisses your mouth until the word is just
a place on your body.
i don’t know what brings broken people together
maybe damage seeks out damage
the way stains on a mattress halo into one another
the way stains on a mattress bleed into each other.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 20, 2016 8:20pm UTC

i give myself five days to forget you.
on the first day i rust.
on the second i wilt.
on the third day i sit with friends but i think about your tongue.
i clean my room on the fourth day. i clean my body on the fourth day.
i try to replace your scent on the fourth day.
the fifth day, i adorn myself like the mouth of an inmate.
a wedding singer dressed in borrowed gold.
the midas of cheap metal.
tinsel in the middle of summer.
crevice glitter, two days after the party.
i glow the way unwanted things do,
a neon sign that reads;
come, i still taste like someone else’s mouth.

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seafoam*
posted a quote
November 20, 2016 8:13pm UTC

i don't know when love became elusive
what i know, is that no one i know has it
my fathers arms around my mothers neck
fruit too ripe to eat, a door half way open
when your name is a just a hand i can never hold
everything i have ever believed in, becomes magic.
i think of lovers as trees, growing to and
from one another searching for the same light,
my mothers laughter in a dark room,
a photograph greying under my touch,
this is all i know how to do, carry loss around until
i begin to resemble every bad memory,
every terrible fear,
every nightmare anyone has ever had.
i ask did you ever love me?
you say of course, of course so quickly
that you sound like someone else
i ask are you made of steel? are you made of iron?
you cry on the phone, my stomach hurts
i let you leave, i need someone who knows how to stay.

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