'i want to go home, but home is the mouth of a shark home is the barrel of the gun'
Reading corner
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 toilet
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’s 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
Healing notes
There is a feeling of resistance in the air, in India. There was a feeling of hopelessness with the sheer force of the nation state but students, young people, fellow citizens rose to the occasion to remind us that we need to speak. I went looking for protest poems because I know only one way to heal when the world is raging - poetry. Poetry has always been my finding place. Warsan Shire speaks beautifully of a home that is burning - I feel that way now about my country. My friends, companions, loved ones might not be as safe as they were a few years ago. It feels unjust and unfair. But it is not the time to drown in despair. It is the time to speak up, in every way possible.
I often write this newsletter from a place of reflective thought. Sometimes it feels hard to do that when everything around me overwhelms me. And I feel insignificant in the larger frame of things. But recently, I spent an hour talking about disability justice and realised that we need more spaces to claim as our own - cause more and more people feel alienated, isolated, in distress and disappointed at the state of the world. One of the people who heard me talk came up to me to say, that they had always felt the were "not normal". But the situation world over seems to hint that normalcy is desirable. Some of us of course feel it is not really something to aspire to - because this cannot be normal. According to the people heading my country, everything happening right now is "normal" and for the greater good. Yet, many of us feel sadder than we have ever been in our short lives. So how do we then separate all this strife from our own lives?
Maybe resistance is hard cause it threatens our lives and livelihoods. I just felt it would be wrong for me to write a note on healing when the people of the world are resisting this appropriated idea of "healing" and of course reinforcement of the "normal". We stand together in ideas of love and justice. We stand together for healing and well-being for all. That cannot happen if many of our fellow humans do not have a home anymore. So now is the time to speak.
Food experiments
I recently (oopsie) discovered the joys of cooking tomatoes for long. I can hear the chuckle of my partner as I type this because he is always complaining that I have no patience in the kitchen.
But diced tomatoes, cooked for 10-15 minutes in ginger garlic paste is honestly divine. I then added chilli powder, salt and turmeric. Then I added the cauliflower cut up into tiny pieces and let them both cook for a while.
It tasted like gobi munchurian in a healthier state.
I of course ate it with a bowl full of dal because how not to!
Dear you,
This might be my last newsletter for the year. I am trying to take some time
to reflect on everything that has happened all year and want to find a way to be hopeful.
Have a blessed end of the year full of resistance and magic <3
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke