“Mother is a cocoon where cells spark, limbs form, mother swells and stretches to protect her child, mother has one foot in this world and one foot in the next, mother, black venus.” - Warsan 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 neighbours running faster than you, the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behindthe old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body,
You only leave home when home won’t let you stay. No one would leave home unless home chased you, fire under feet, hot blood in your belly. It’s not something you ever thought about doing, and so when you did – you carried the anthem under your breath, waiting until the airport toilet to tear up the passport and swallow, each mouthful of paper making it clear that you would not be going back.
You have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land. Who would choose to spend days and nights in the stomach of a truck unless the miles travelled meant something more than journey.
No one would choose to crawl under fences, be beaten until your shadow leaves you, raped, then drowned, forced to the bottom of the boat because you are darker, be sold, starved, shot at the border like a sick animal, be pitied, lose your name, lose your family, make a refugee camp a home for a year or two or ten, stripped and searched, find prison everywhere and if you survive and you are greeted on the other side with go home blacks, refugees, dirty immigrants, asylum seekers sucking our country dry of milk, dark, with their hands out smell strange, savage – look what they’ve done to their own countries, what will they do to ours? the dirty looks in the street softer than a limb torn off, the indignity of everyday life more tender than fourteen men who look like your father, between your legs, insults easier to swallow than rubble, than your child’s body in pieces – for now, forget about pride your survival is more important.
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 tells you to leave what you could not behind, even if it was human.
No one leaves home until home is a damp voice in your ear saying leave, run now, i don’t know what i’ve become.
The crows she feeds obviously have their own little lives. They go about their business, and they spot *pretty thing* or /unique thing/ in question. What gets me is that the *first* thing on their minds as recipient of this thing is the little girl that feeds them.
They spot a thing, and immediately must think, “that nice girl with delicious foodstuffs must have this to show my gratitude.”
It’s actually more than that, though, if you read the articles or watch the videos. This has taken place over YEARS- it started with these birds following this little girl around because she was a messy eater and it has turned into a ritual for the family. They have a water station and food stations where they daily set out things for these birds and sometimes (but not always), these birds leave ‘payment’ behind for the food.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE
These birds are not just taking food and leaving shinies. These birds are watching over this family now. Their lives have become involved. These crows are keeping track of this girl and her mother even when they are out of the yard. How do we know?
One of them is a photographer, and one day while she was photographing some stuff on a bridge, she dropped her camera’s lenscap over the edge. There was no way she could get it back, so she left it. When she got home, the lenscap was sitting on the edge of one of the feeding stations, waiting for her.
Not only were the birds following and watching over her, they were smart enough to realize she dropped an Important Thing and cared enough to bring it back to her.
