Safia Elhillo > Quotes

“verily everything that is lost will be given a name & will not come back but will live forever”
― Safia Elhillo, The January Children

“my loneliness grows teeth i feel them chewing my stomach”
― Safia Elhillo, Home Is Not a Country

“I want him to know I am not lonely, I have ghosts, I have my illnesses, I have a mouthful of half-languages, & blood thick with medications, doctors line up to hear my crooked heart”
― Safia Elhillo, The January Children

“it was easier to just be something else”
― Safia Elhillo, The January Children

“I will begin by writing a sentence about cutting. I will begin by writing a sentence about silence. I will continue by writing a sentence about cutting. I will proceed to ask the question about cutting. I will proceed from this point without euphemism. The question is about the clitoris. I call my cousins in turn. I ask the question about the clitoris. I will begin by writing a sentence about the clitoris. I will begin with the assumption that we each continue to have a clitoris. False. We do not talk about this. I will begin with speculation about our mothers, that each continues to have a clitoris. False. We are never to ask. In the silence, my youngest cousin asks if our grandmothers were cut. We were meant to proceed without euphemism. The Arabic, however, does not allow it. The Arabic, cut by euphemism. We do not use the word cut. The word we use, left intact, is purified. I will ask. I will begin. I was born & allowed to mature uncut. I was born with a clitoris & remain uncut. I was born unnamed & upon arrival was given my orders. I was born & named for a woman who died. The Arabic here allows for nuance. My name, ours, is not the same as the word we use to mean cut. That word, conjugated, is the name of one of my grandmothers. I will not ask her the question. I am told she does not remember.”
― Safia Elhillo, Girls That Never Die: Poems

“burdened by the shadow of an accent that i cannot manage to make charming”
― Safia Elhillo, Home Is Not a Country

“for every
country i lose i make another & i make another”
― Safia Elhillo, The January Children

“i have all my buried dead they root me
& all my missing dead displace me here i am
stain of emptied bloodlines of women dressed in black”
― Safia Elhillo, The January Children

“our mouths open & a song falls out thick
with a saxophone’s syrup & all our dead
in the ground make the land ours & all
our missing fathers make us everything’s child”
― Safia Elhillo, The January Children

“+1 833 457 9024 ”
― Safia Elhillo