You can't make homes out of human beings.
Interpretation
People cannot be expected to fulfill all emotional needs or be treated as possessions.
This quote by Warsan Shire highlights the inadequacy of relying on others to complete us or provide a sense of belonging. It suggests that we should not treat individuals as mere tools for our emotional satisfaction, as this can lead to unhealthy relationships and emotional turmoil.
In practice
In a workshop on healthy relationships, one might quote this to emphasize the need for personal fulfillment.
I’m not sad, but the boys who are looking for sad girls always find me. I’m not a girl anymore and I’m not sad anymore. You want me to be a tragic backdrop so that you can appear to be illuminated, so that people can say ‘Wow, isn't he so terribly brave to love a girl who is so obviously sad?’ You think I’ll be the dark sky so you can be the star? I’ll swallow you whole.
We took such care of tomorrow, but died on the way there.
Document the moments you feel most in love with yourself - what you're wearing, who you're around, what you're doing. Recreate and repeat.
Every mouth you’ve ever kissed was just practice. All the bodies you’ve ever undressed and ploughed in to were preparing you for me. I don’t mind tasting them in the memory of your mouth. _x000D_ Was it a long journey? Did it take you long to find me? _x000D_ You’re here now, welcome home.
Make peace with your body, it's not manmade, there are no flaws, there are no mistakes.
Make love like you have no secrets like you've never been left never been hurt like the world don't owe you a single wretched thing.
When we enter a new situation in life and are confronted by a new person, we bring with us the prejudices of the past and our previous experiences of people. These prejudices we project upon the new person. Indeed, getting to know a person is largely a matter of withdrawing projections; of dispelling the smoke screen of what we imagine he is like and replacing it with the reality of what he is actually like.
We think constant connection will make us feel less lonely. The opposite is true.
Those influences which really make and mar human happiness and greatness are beyond the reach of the law. The law can keep neighbors from trespassing, but it cannot put neighborly courtesy and good-will into their relations.
Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I've met.
If women will not accept marriage with subjection, nor men proffer it without, there is, there can be, no alternative. The women who will not be ruled must live without marriage. And during this transition period... single women make comfortable and attractive homes for themselves.
It's frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.
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