The House / Warsan Shire

(i)
Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women; kitchen of lust,
Bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy.
Sometimes the men - they come with keys,
And sometimes, the men - they come with hammers.

(ii)
Nin soo joog laga waayo, soo jiifso aa laga helaa,
I said Stop, I said No and he did not listen.

(iii)
Perhaps she has a plan, perhaps she takes him back to hers
Only for him to wake up hours later in a bathtub full of ice,
With a dry mouth, looking down at his new, neat procedure.

(iv)
I point to my body and say:
Oh this old thing?
No, I just slipped it on.

(v)
Are you going to eat that?
I say to my mother, pointing to my father
Who is lying on the dining room table,
His mouth stuffed with a red apple.

(vi)
The bigger my body is, the more locked rooms there are, the more men come with keys.
Anwar didn’t push it all the way in, I still think about what he could have opened up inside of me.
Basil came and hesitated at the door for three years.
Johnny with the blue eyes came with a bag of tools he had used on other women:
One hairpin, a bottle of bleach, a switchblade and a jar of Vaseline.
Yusuf called out God’s name through the keyhole and no one answered.
Some begged, some climbed the side of my body looking for a window,
Some said they were on their way and did not come.

(vii)
Show us on the doll where you were touched, they said.
I said I don’t look like a doll, I look like a house.
They said Show us on the house.

Like this: two fingers in the jam jar
Like this: an elbow in the bathwater
Like this: a hand in the drawer.

(viii)
I should tell you about my first love who found a trapdoor under my left breast nine years ago, fell in and hasn’t been seen since. Every now and then I feel something crawling up my thigh. He should make himself known, I’d probably let him out. I hope he hasn’t bumped in to the others, the missing boys from small towns, with pleasant mothers, who did bad things and got lost in the maze of my hair. I treat them well enough, a slice of bread, if they’re lucky a piece of fruit. Except for Johnny with the blue eyes, who picked my locks and crawled in. Silly boy, chained to the basement of my fears, I play music to drown him out.

(ix)
Knock knock.
Who’s there?
No one.

(x)
At parties I point to my body and say This is where love comes to die. Welcome, come in, make yourself at home. Everyone laughs, they think I’m joking.

(Warsan is a British-Somali poet and activist. Her poems have been translated into numerous languages. Her most notable work is 'Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth')