Poetry by Warsan Shire

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

This is poetry by Warsan Shire, featured on Beyonce’s breathtaking visual album Lemonade, released over three years ago now. I remember that day so vividly. I had no idea it was coming—no one did—and when it dropped, I watched and listened, speechless. It was everything. It was the soft light coming through the Spanish moss trees, it was the grittiness of the parking garage, it was the fucks she rarely employs, it was that yellow dress. And it was, of course, the poetry. I think about that poetry often, especially the first two lines of the poem below. The way she delivers those lines, with a pause between less and awake, is deeply sad and defeated. It’s beautiful.

Denial by Warsan Shire

I tried to change. Closed my mouth more, tried to be softer, prettier, less awake. Fasted for 60 days, wore white, abstained from mirrors, abstained from sex, slowly did not speak another word. In that time, my hair, I grew past my ankles. I slept on a mat on the floor. I swallowed a sword. I levitated. Went to the basement, confessed my sins, and was baptized in a river. I got on my knees and said ‘amen’ and said ‘I mean.’ I whipped my own back and asked for dominion at your feet. I threw myself into a volcano. I drank the blood and drank the wine. I sat alone and bent at the waist for Got. I crossed myself and thought I saw the devil. I grew thickened skin on my feet, I bathed in bleach, and plugged my menses with pages from the holy book, but still inside me, coiled deep, was the need to know…