The following powerful poem which brings home the stark reality of the horrifying decisions refugee parents must make, is from the Kenyan-born Somali poet Warsan Shire who emigrated to the United Kingdom at the age of one. She became London’s first ever Young Poet Laureate, and became a voice for its marginalised people. Her verse forms the backbone of queen of pop Beyoncé’s recent album Lemonade..
I hope that 2017 will be a year of justice, a year of change, and that humanity keeps giving a warm welcome to all people depicted in the following poem. Let us not forget the many millions displaced, either as refugees, asylum seekers, migrants or internally displaced persons whose daily existence is one of struggle. Remember no one chooses the country they are born in to and no one deserves to be persecuted because of it, especially if the country they happen to be born into has been torn apart and become unsafe to live in because of war that is funded by our own governments.
As another year turns and the refugee crisis and this human tragedy continues unabated, let's keep commemorating the strength, courage and resilience of millions of refugees the world over.
Home
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