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 neighbours running faster than you, your breath bloody in their throats
and 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
and even then you carry the anthem under your breath, only tearing up your passport
in airport toilets, sobbing
as each mouthful of paper made it clear that you would not be going back.
You have to understand,
no one would put their children in a boat unless the sea is safer than the land.
No one burns their palms under trains, beneath carriages.
No one spends days and nights in the gall bladder of a truck feeding on newspaper
unless the miles travelled mean something more than journey.
No one crawls under fences,
wants to be beaten, wants to be 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 is safer than fourteen men who look like your father.
No one could take it.
Could stomach it.
No one’s skin would be tough enough.
“Go home blacks”, “refugees”, “dirty immigrants”, “asylum seekers”.
“Sucking our country dry”.
“Niggers with their hands out”. “They smell strange”, “savage”.
“Messed up their own country and now they want to mess up ours?”
How do the words “dirty looks” roll off your back?
And maybe it’s because the blow is softer than a limb torn off.
Or the words are more tender than fourteen men between your legs.
Insults are easier to swallow than rubble, than bone, than your child’s body in pieces.
“I wanna go home.”
But home is the mouth of a shark.
Home is the barrel of a gun.
And no one would leave home unless home chases you to the shore.
Unless home told you to quicken your legs.
Leave your clothes behind. Crawl for the desert.
Wade for the oceans.
Drown. Save. Be hungry. Beg.
Forget pride, your survival is more important.
No one leaves home unless home is a sweaty voice in your ear, saying
“Leave. Run away from me now. I don’t know what I’ve become,
but I know that anywhere is safer than here.“
You only run for the border when you see the whole city running as well.
Your neighbours running faster than you, your breath bloody in their throats
and 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
and even then you carry the anthem under your breath, only tearing up your passport
in airport toilets, sobbing
as each mouthful of paper made it clear that you would not be going back.
You have to understand,
no one would put their children in a boat unless the sea is safer than the land.
No one burns their palms under trains, beneath carriages.
No one spends days and nights in the gall bladder of a truck feeding on newspaper
unless the miles travelled mean something more than journey.
No one crawls under fences,
wants to be beaten, wants to be 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 is safer than fourteen men who look like your father.
No one could take it.
Could stomach it.
No one’s skin would be tough enough.
“Go home blacks”, “refugees”, “dirty immigrants”, “asylum seekers”.
“Sucking our country dry”.
“Niggers with their hands out”. “They smell strange”, “savage”.
“Messed up their own country and now they want to mess up ours?”
How do the words “dirty looks” roll off your back?
And maybe it’s because the blow is softer than a limb torn off.
Or the words are more tender than fourteen men between your legs.
Insults are easier to swallow than rubble, than bone, than your child’s body in pieces.
“I wanna go home.”
But home is the mouth of a shark.
Home is the barrel of a gun.
And no one would leave home unless home chases you to the shore.
Unless home told you to quicken your legs.
Leave your clothes behind. Crawl for the desert.
Wade for the oceans.
Drown. Save. Be hungry. Beg.
Forget pride, your survival is more important.
No one leaves home unless home is a sweaty voice in your ear, saying
“Leave. Run away from me now. I don’t know what I’ve become,
but I know that anywhere is safer than here.“
