Home Warsan Shire

The poem shifts between first-person and the unusual second-person perspective, using both "i" and "you" as the subject of the poem. The speaker seems to be a refugee herself, and she describes the harrowing experience from her own point of view; but she also speaks as a kind of collective migrant consciousness. The poem moves in and out of the speaker's individual perspective, featuring snatches of scenes from other refugees and quotes from people that the refugees encounter.