they set my aunts house on fire
i cried the way women on tv do
folding at the middle
like a five pound note.
i called the boy who use to love me
tried to ‘okay’ my voice
i said hello
he said warsan, what’s wrong, what’s happened?
i’ve been praying,
and these are what my prayers look like;
dear god
i come from two countries
one is thirsty
the other is on fire
both need water.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
I think of this poem frequently in this time of conflict and war, where I run my fingers over the metaphorical earth and whisper to it. Warsan Shire wrote this in her early twenties for her 2011 chapbook teaching my mother how to give birth, the book that established her as one of the major young voices in contemporary diasporic poetry. The poem holds an aunt's house burning in Somalia alongside the her prayer in London — I come from two countries / one is thirsty / the other is on fire / both need water — and closes with the atlas held in the her lap, asked where does it hurt, answering everywhere everywhere everywhere. It is such a poignant piece, of what it means to be torn between countries, to be exiled, to yearn, and to know your pain as both specific and universal.
