"you have to understand,
that no one puts their children in a boat
unless the water is safer than the land"
This quote is probably referring to the mass migrations that have resulted from violence in the Middle East, made worse since the successful Tunisia revolution in 2011, which coalesced with droughts and political turmoil and sparked other much more devastating revolutions in Syria and elsewhere. These revolutions were and are extremely destructive, forcing millions of people to leave their home in boats. Dozens, sometimes hundreds, are still washing up on the shores of Turkey and some Greek and Italian islands, or finding their ways to other places in Europe, every day. These boat rides are usually extremely dangerous, and each ride is expensive and risky—migrants are exposed to pirates, corruption, law enforcement, and the ravages of the ocean itself.
Of course, this sentence could also refer more generally to the age-old tradition of migrations in boats; the first European colonizers of America arrived in boats, and so did the many millions who followed. Migration has been a constant, even in primordial times, with the earliest migrants on record crossing the Bering Strait to North America. Forced migration has been a constant throughout history, from slavery to the forced exclusion of Mexicans and Central Americans from the United States in contrast to the prioritization of European migrants in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Regardless, this quote refers to the fact that sea voyages are always dangerous—especially the covert voyages of modern migrants—so much so that no one would ever depart by this route unless they literally had no other choice. Many migrants face such extreme danger in their home countries that they choose to risk the sea voyages, knowing they could die and knowing that they will likely end up in desolate refugee camps upon their arrival, because it is better than the alternative.
Though throughout most of the poem "you" refers to the migrant or migrants it is speaking out for, here "you" refers to the poem's reader or to someone who is misinformed, who needs to be shown the often violent and painful details of refugee experiences in order to understand why migrants leave home.
"how do the words
the dirty looks
roll off your backs
maybe because the blow is softer
than a limb torn off"
This quote addresses the bigotry and hatred experienced by many migrants when they arrive at the countries in which they are seeking refuge, and it explains why they continue to come to these countries even though it has been made clear that they are not welcome. Non-European migrants have historically been met with hatred in America; from Japanese internment camps in the mid-20th century to the way that Central Americans are being perceived today.
Still, racism and ugly words are much easier to deal with than the unimaginable violence of wartime, when every day there is another bombing, when you can't leave your house without fear of being killed. The narrator is pleading with the reader, asking them to understand that for people fleeing violence, extreme poverty, and war, migration is not a choice. It is an act of survival.
"drown
save
be hunger
beg
forget pride
your survival is more important"
This stanza, like much of the rest of the poem, works as a collage, a collection of disparate images that come from various migrant stories. Many migrants do drown during sea passages—more than three thousand died in 2017, according to a report by NPR, and The Guardian estimates that over 35,000 died at sea over the past 30 years.
Many migrants perform stunning acts of self-sacrifice to save those they are with; such as Doaa Al Zamel—the subject of Melissa Fleming's biography A Hope Wider Than the Sea—who is a 19-year-old Syrian girl who stayed awake for days at sea holding two infant children while everyone else around her drowned.
The phrase "be hunger" is more enigmatic—perhaps it describes how hunger can quite literally become a person's identity when it takes over, and how the will to survive can overtake any and all fear.
The final three lines refer to the reasons why many migrants sacrifice their pride and livelihoods in order to search for a safe place. Once the human instinct to survive kicks in, people will go to incredible lengths to protect their loved ones; higher ideals like pride become irrelevant.
"no one leaves home until home is a sweaty voice in your ear
saying-
leave"
Throughout "Home," Warsan Shire speaks through the voice of "Home," a voice that threatens and begs its inhabitants to leave it. This quote is an example of that. Here, Shire is imagining that "Home" has the ability to speak, to whisper to its people, to urge them to leave. It emphasizes the fact that the decision to leave home is often made because home itself is forcing people to leave, not because they want to come and take advantage of another country. Here it seems to address a migrant or many migrants, who are faced with impossible violence that forces them to leave home.
By describing home's voice as "sweaty," Shire emphasizes the urgency and terror that defines the experience of many migrants leaving their homes. They are being urged on by a terror and fear that is larger than life, that seems to be coming from the land itself.
"i dont know what I've become"
This quote continues the previous one, exploring more reasons why the metaphorical entity of "home" feels that it has become uninhabitable. Here, the personified "home" expresses horror at its situation. It expresses the self-loathing and misery that many migrants feel once they arrive in new places, due to trauma or the hatred and violation that they experience on every step of their journeys.
In this way, "home" is expressing a kind of solidarity with the people who it is telling to leave. Both are losing fundamental parts of themselves. Both have been changed irrevocably, have lost significant parts of their identities, have seen their worlds severely distorted.
