Home
by Warson Shire
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 neighbors running faster than you
breath bloody in their throats
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
it’s not something you ever thought of doing
until the blade burnt threats into
your neck
and even then you carried the anthem under
your breath
only tearing up your passport in an airport toilets
sobbing as each mouthful of paper
made it clear that you wouldn’t be going back.
you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land
no one burns their palms
under trains
beneath carriages
no one spends days and nights in the stomach of a truck
feeding on newspaper unless the miles travelled
means something more than journey.
no one crawls under fences
no one wants to be beaten
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
in the night
is better than a truckload
of men who look like your father
no one could take it
no one could stomach it
no one skin would be tough enough
the
go home blacks
refugees
dirty immigrants
asylum seekers
sucking our country dry
niggers with their hands out
they smell strange
savage
messed up their country and now they want
to mess ours up
how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off
or the words are more tender
than fourteen men between
your legs
or the insults are easier
to swallow
than rubble
than bone
than your child body
in pieces.
i want to go home,
but home is the mouth of a shark
home is the barrel of the gun
and no one would leave home
unless home chased you to the shore
unless home told you
to quicken your legs
leave your clothes behind
crawl through the desert
wade through the oceans
drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important
no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave,
run away from me now
i dont know what i’ve become
but i know that anywhere
is safer than here
Personal Reflection
There are poems that sit quietly on the page.
Home doesn’t.
It presses in. It crowds the air. It makes you aware of things you’d rather keep at a distance—because once you understand what it’s saying, you don’t get to return to comfort without a little guilt tagging along.
At its core, this poem dismantles a lie we’ve grown comfortable believing: that leaving is a choice.
We dress it up as ambition. Reinvention. Opportunity.
Something clean. Something admirable.
But Shire cuts through that narrative with surgical precision.
No one leaves home unless staying becomes unbearable.
Not inconvenient. Not disappointing.
Unbearable.
That word carries weight. It implies a breaking point—a moment when the body, the mind, or the soul recognizes something the rest of us don’t want to see. A line crossed. A threshold passed. A quiet understanding that what once held you now threatens to erase you.
And suddenly, leaving isn’t brave.
It’s necessary.
That shift matters.
Because it forces us to confront how easily we judge movement without understanding its cause. We see departure and assume desire. We assume agency. We assume people are chasing something.
This poem reminds us that sometimes they’re running.
And not toward anything.
Just away.
Away from violence. From silence. From systems that make it clear—without ever saying it outright—that you do not belong here anymore.
But here’s where the poem deepens.
Home isn’t just about geography. It’s about identity—what happens when the place that shaped you can no longer contain you. When your history becomes something you have to carry instead of something you can return to.
That kind of leaving doesn’t end when the journey does.
It follows.
In the way you speak.
In what you remember.
In what you choose not to talk about.
It lives in the space between who you were and who you’re forced to become.
And maybe that’s the quiet truth this poem leaves behind:
Not everyone gets to leave cleanly.
Some people leave in pieces.
Some carry entire worlds inside them—fractured, incomplete, but still alive.
Reflection Prompts
- When does leaving stop being a choice and start becoming survival?
- What does home mean when it no longer feels like a place you can return to?
- What parts of your story would you fight to carry with you, no matter where you go?
Memoirs of Madness 