Milk and Honey

by Rupi Kaur

how is it so easy for you to be kind to people he asked milk and honey dripped from my lips as i answered cause people have not been kind to me

every time you tell your daughter you yell at her out of love you teach her to confuse anger with kindness which seems like a good idea till she grows up to trust men who hurt her cause they look so much like you

the idea that we are so capable of love but still choose to be toxic

you tell me to quiet down cause my opinions make me less beautiful but i was not made with a fire in my belly so i could be put out i was not made with a lightness on my tongue so i could be easy to swallow i was made heavy half blade and half silk difficult to forget and not easy for the mind to follow

your mother is in the habit of offering more love than you can carry your father is absent you are a war the border between two countries the collateral damage the paradox that joins the two but also splits them apart

you look just like your mother i guess i do carry her tenderness well you both have the same eyes cause we are both exhausted and the hands we share the same wilting fingers but that rage your mother doesn’t wear that anger you’re right this rage is the one thing i get from my father

i struggle so deeply to understand how someone can pour their entire soul blood and energy into someone without wanting anything in return - i will have to wait till i’m a mother

love will come and when love comes love will hold you love will call your name and you will melt sometimes though love will hurt you but love will never mean to love will play no games cause love knows life has been hard enough already

you were so distant i forgot you were there at all

don’t mistake salt for sugar if he wants to be with you he will it’s that simple

i didn’t leave because i stopped loving you i left because the longer i stayed the less i loved myself

you mustn’t have to make them want you they must want you themselves

did you think i was a city big enough for a weekend getaway i am the town surrounding it the one you’ve never heard of but always pass through there are no neon lights here no skyscrapers or statues but there is thunder for i make bridges tremble i am not street meat i am homemade jam thick enough to cut the sweetest thing your lips will touch i am not police sirens i am the crackle of a fireplace i’d burn you and you still couldn’t take your eyes off me cause i’d look so beautiful doing it you’d blush i am not a hotel room i am home i am not the whiskey you want i am the water you need don’t come here with expectations and try to make a vacation out of me

the thing worth holding on to would not have let go when you are broken and he has left you do not question whether you were enough the problem was you were so enough he was not able to carry it

you treat them like they have a heart like yours but not everyone can be as soft and as tender you don’t see the person they are you see the person they have the potential to be you give and give till they pull everything out of you and leave you empty

i had to leave i was tired of allowing you to make me feel anything less than whole

i don’t know what living a balanced life feels like when i am sad i don’t cry i pour when i am happy i don’t smile i glow when i am angry i don’t yell i burn the good thing about feeling in extremes is when i love i give them wings but perhaps that isn’t such a good thing cause they always tend to leave and you should see me when my heart is broken i don’t grieve i shatter

i came all this way to give you all these things but you aren’t even looking

the abused and the abuser - i have been both

it always comes back to you boils circles itches its way back to you

i was music but you had your ears cut off

you were not wrong for leaving you were wrong for coming back and thinking you could have me when it was convenient and leave when it was not

we began with honesty let us end in it too - us

i don’t know why i split myself open for others knowing sewing myself up hurts this much afterward

people go but how they left always stays

love is not cruel we are cruel love is not a game we have made a game out of love

i am water soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away

perhaps i don’t deserve nice things cause i am paying for sins i don’t remember

do not bother holding on to that thing that does not want you - you cannot make it stay

loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself

do not look for healing at the feet of those who broke you

if you were born with the weakness to fall you were born with the strength to rise

stay strong through your pain grow flowers from it you have helped me grow flowers out of mine so bloom beautifully dangerously loudly bloom softly however you need just bloom

i thank the universe for taking everything it has taken and giving to me everything it is giving - balance

it takes grace to remain kind in cruel situations

fall in love with your solitude there is a difference between someone telling you they love you and them actually loving you

sometimes the apology never comes when it is wanted and when it comes it is neither wanted no...

to be soft is to be powerful

i know it’s hard believe me i know it feels like tomorrow will never come and today will be the most difficult day to get through but i swear you will get through the hurt will pass as it always does if you give it time and let it so let it go slowly like a broken promise let it go

i like the way the stretch marks on my thighs look human and that we’re so soft yet rough and jungle wild when we need to be i love that about us how capable we are of feeling how unafraid we are of breaking and tend to our wounds with grace just being a woman calling myself a woman makes me utterly whole and complete

my issue with what they consider beautiful is their concept of beauty centers around excluding people i find hair beautiful when a woman wears it like a garden on her skin that is the definition of beauty big hooked noses pointing upward to the sky like they’re rising to the occasion skin the color of earth my ancestors planted crops on to feed a lineage of women with thighs thick as tree trunks eyes like almonds deeply hooded with conviction the rivers of punjab flow through my bloodstream so don’t tell me my women aren’t as beautiful as the ones in your country

accept yourself as you were designed

your body is a museum of natural disasters can you grasp how stunning that is

losing you was the becoming of myself

other women’s bodies are not our battlegrounds

removing all the hair off your body is okay if that’s what you want to do just as much as keeping all the hair on your body is okay if that’s what you want to do - you belong only to yourself

apparently it is ungraceful of me to mention my period in public cause the actual biology of my body is too real it is okay to sell what’s between a woman’s legs more than it is okay to mention its inner workings the recreational use of this body is seen as beautiful while its nature is seen as ugly

i want to apologize to all the women i have called pretty before i’ve called them intelligent or brave i am sorry i made it sound as though something as simple as what you’re born with is the most you have to be proud of when your spirit has crushed mountains from now on i will say things like you are resilient or you are extraordinary not because i don’t think you’re pretty but because you are so much more than that

i have what i have and i am happy i’ve lost what i’ve lost and i am still happy