![]() ![]() ![]() Sometimes, home chases you away just to make sure you stay alive. It is baffling how people have a tendency to call refugees invaders or say that they had chosen the life of undergoing horrible events, when, like anyone else, they would rather be home, but home just is not safe anymore. Shire is expressing how anything, any fate is better than dying in your own home due to it being unsafe. Like mentioned before, she is not just discussing the perspective of the people, she discusses the way in which other people react, and the way in which the country itself feels about watching its citizens, its children go. What makes this poem work is the technique that Shire had implemented in order to get the severity of her point across. People will still yearn for home and to go home. That love may not be translated out loud in a bold fashion, but it is there. When Shire writes, “ i t’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”, I begin to imagine how people are being forced out of their homes and they are forced to leave with horrifying and only bad memories of what remains of their country, but even then, even with all the bad, there is still undying love left for what home used to be. Here, words are not just words anymore, they are illustrating actions and pain individuals have to undergo. Warsan Shire clearly outlines not only the approach that those who are running feel, but she addresses what people say to those individuals who are running. This poem is painful to read. QuotesEdit I wrote the poem for them, for my family and for anyone who has experienced or lived around grief and trauma in that way. It then follows the narrator as she escapes, tearing up her passport, thus essentially erasing her identity and her connection to her home. This poem is reflective of what refugees see when they leave home, when they get on boats, when they come into countries more foreign to them than what the future holds. It describes traumatic memoriesbeing held at knifepoint and given death threats, feeling fire and destruction overtake the city that was once your home. No one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear Messed up their country and now they want No one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truckįeeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled That no one puts their children in a boat Made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back. Only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets It’s not something you ever thought of doingĪnd even then you carried the anthem under No one leaves home unless home chases you Who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory When you see the whole city running as well ![]()
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