Nicola Young: When home is barrel of a gun

ASHORE: Syrian refugees arrive on the Greek island of Lesbos on a dinghy from Turkey.PHOTO/AP AP151109073403

THE POIGNANT image of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Aylan Kurdi lying face down on a Turkish shoreline, has rocked us.

It has shaken us from a slumber of indifference and ignorance about the plight of millions of people forced from their homes.

This poor boy's death is, thankfully, prompting more than hand wringing - it has humanised the heartbreaking stories happening daily, whether in Europe or Africa, Asia or even Australia and with that has prompted political action.

There has been powerful commentary from around the globe and at home - I wanted to share the highlights like the Finnish Prime Minister offering his home to refugees or the moving images of the precious and practical contents carried in backpacks by fleeing refugees.

But, instead, this week I dedicate my column centimetres to Home, a poem by Somali-British writer 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
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 toilet
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's 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 don't know what I've become
but I know that anywhere is safer than here.

What can we do? Support an increase to our refugee quota, volunteer to help refugees settle, donate to organisations working to help refugees survive, be compassionate about their stories, and ditch the word migrants - these people are not choosing a new place to live.

Nicola Young has worked in the government and private sectors in Australia and NZ and now works from home in Taranaki for a charitable foundation. Educated at Wanganui Girls' College, she has a science degree and is the mother of two boys.