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“The Kitchen
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Half a papaya and a palmful of sesame oil;
lately, your husband’s mind has been elsewhere.
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Honeyed dates, goat’s milk;
you want to quiet the bloating of salt.
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Coconut and ghee butter;
he kisses the back of your neck at the stove.
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Cayenne and roasted pine nuts;
you offer him the hollow of your throat.
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Saffron and rosemary;
you don’t ask him her name.
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Vine leaves and olives;
you let him lift you by the waist.
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Cinnamon and tamarind;
lay you down on the kitchen counter.
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Almonds soaked in rose water;
your husband is hungry.
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Sweet mangoes and sugared lemon;
he had forgotten the way you taste.

Sour dough and cumin;
but she cannot make him eat, like you.”
― Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth

“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

“Fire
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i
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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�
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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?
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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.
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ii
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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.
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iii
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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

“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.”
― Warsan Shire, Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth