Just bringing this back because

....because 3 years after i read this poem it has become a refugee anthem all over the world.

Home by Warsan Shire

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

your neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
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.

no one leaves home unless home chases you
fire under feet
hot blood in your belly
it's not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn't be going back.

you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
pitied

no one chooses refugee camps
or strip searches where your
body is left aching
or prison,
because prison is safer
than a city of fire
and one prison guard
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough

the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off

or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important

no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i've become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here

This made me tear up.

Ms. Shire's message is more powerful because she understands her own birth-country people's plight (Somalia) and is able to distill the essence for all refugees. She got to England at 1 year-old & has received several awards including Young Poet Laureate for London.

Yes yes,

Shire's parents escaped the war in Somalia.

This is painful to the bones

Oh wow! I recall reading a line of this, excuse the bad recollection... nobody travels over water unless the land isn't safe.... but I never realised it was an entire gut-wrenching poem. this is beautiful and horrific and heart breaking all at once, also slightly hits home for me, as I am a "when-we" refugee, I was basically kidnapped from my disease ridden homeland of zimbabwe by my step dad and his wife, and now I'm stuck in limbo not able to go back home cause I've been out for over 15 years and am no longer a citizen and have no family there, and fearing each day in this place I call home as I am classed as an illegal immigrant due to my step dad and his wife's stupidity in not legalising me when we arrived here, so at any given moment I can be put in jail here or taken back to zimbabwe and put in prison or be placed lord knows where with lord knows who and end up dead on the streets with some disease like my mother and half sister. sorry about that, but yeh basically I get sort of how the writer feels/felt.

Lord, Hazel!!!!

Isn't there any help organization that can get you legalized in some capacity? Maybe if not a South African based organization there may be a United Nations group.
I hope this gets resolved and soon!

Poems like these are a wake up call for me to stop being a crying B****! Ok, I loved someone more than words can ever say it, but really, I have a beautiful daughter and a great life! I have never had to go through a hardship like the poem is all about..
What Im trying to say is that this poem should be read by all of us humans...
Thx 4 posting it!!!!