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# Your Mother’s First Kiss
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/your-mothers-first-kiss/
- Published: 2012-12-07T07:12:06.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T20:49:18.000Z
- Description: A poem by Warsan Shire. Part of a series of poems by African feminist writers for 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence.
- Author: Warsan Shire
- Tags: Conflict & security, #Migrated, 50.50 Our Africa, violence against women, 16 Days, 2012, conflict, sexual violence, 16 Days: activism against gender based violence, 50.50 Editor's Pick, women and militarism, #en, #Import 2026-04-09 14:30

The first boy to kiss your mother later raped women  
when the war broke out. She remembers hearing this  
from your uncle, then going to your bedroom and laying  
down on the floor. You were at school.  
  
Your mother was sixteen when he first kissed her.  
She held her breath for so long that she blacked out.  
On waking she found her dress was wet and sticking  
to her stomach, half moons bitten into her thighs.  
  
That same evening she visited a friend, a girl  
who fermented wine illegally in her bedroom.  
When your mother confessed I've never been touched  
like that before, the friend laughed, mouth bloody with grapes,  
then plunged a hand between your mother's legs.  
  
Last week, she saw him driving the number 18 bus,  
his cheek a swollen drumlin, a vine scar dragging itself  
across his mouth. You were with her, holding a bag  
of dates to your chest, heard her let out a deep moan  
when she saw how much you looked like him.

*This poem was originally published in* [*Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth’*](http://www.flippedeye.net/store/product%5Finfo.php?products%5Fid=85&ref=opendemocracy.net) *(2011).*

*Read* [*other articles*](http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/16-days-activism-against-gender-violence/16-days-of-activism-against-gender-violence-2012) *in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.*