Mother says there are locked rooms inside all women, kitchen of love, bedroom of grief, bathroom of apathy. Sometimes, the men, they come with keys, and sometimes the men, they come with hammers.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the complexities of women's emotions and how men interact with them, either tenderly or forcefully.
Warsan Shire's quote illustrates the intricate emotional landscapes that women navigate, portraying their feelings as locked rooms that can be accessed differently by men. The 'keys' symbolize gentle and respectful approaches to understanding and connecting with these emotions, while the 'hammers' represent destructive or forceful attempts that can lead to emotional harm.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the emotional intelligence required in relationships.
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.
You can't make homes out of human beings.
Changing laws and changing the political dialogue, while necessary, is insufficient to ensure that bullying stops; to ensure that every young person is supported by their parents and their teachers as they question who they are and they discover who they are regardless of the sexuality.
It slaps your dignity just right. I loved the idea of these proud, dignified black men, and I saw the older ones wounded, and it wounded me ten times as much because I couldn't stand seeing them hurt like this.
Why was she always so craven, so apologetic? He had always seen Ruth as separate, good and untainted. As a child, his parents had appeared to him as starkly black and white, the one bad and frightening, the other good and kind. Yet as he had grown older, he kept coming up hard in his mind against Ruth's willing blindness, to her constant apologia for his father, to the unshakeable allegiance to her false idol.
Human attention tends to be focused on the satisfactions relationships are hoped to bring, precisely because somehow they have not been truly satisfactory. And if they do satisfy, the price of this satisfaction has often been found to be unacceptable.
Each of us must be committed to maintaining the reputation of all of us. And all of us must be committed to maintaining the reputation of each of us.
My goal is to speak the truth in love. There are a lot of people speaking the truth with no love, and there are a lot of people talking about love without much truth.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.