Milk and Honey

by Rupi Kaur

the first boy that kissed me held my shoulders down like the handlebars of the first bicycle he ever rode i was five he had the smell of starvation on his lips which he picked up from his father feasting on his mother at 4 a.m. he was the first boy to teach me my body was for giving to those that wanted that i should feel anything less than whole and my god did i feel as empty as his mother at 4:25 a.m.

you were so afraid of my voice i decided to be afraid of it too

Yes!

she was a rose in the hands of those who had no intention of keeping her

Know your worth

i’ve had sex she said but i don’t know what making love feels like

if i knew what safety looked like i would have spent less time falling into arms that were not

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sex takes the consent of two if one person is lying there not doing anything cause they are not ready or not in the mood or simply don’t want to yet the other is having sex with their body it’s not love it is rape

the idea that we are so capable of love but still c...

the idea that a woman will bring dishonor into a home if she tries to keep her heart and her body safe

you pinned my legs to the ground with your feet and demanded i stand up

trying to convince myself i am allowed to take up space is like writing with my left hand when i was born to use my right - the idea of shrinking is hereditary

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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

emptying out of my mother’s belly was my first act of disappearance learning to shrink for a family who likes their daughters invisible was the second the art of being empty is simple believe them when they say you are nothing repeat it to yourself like a wish i am nothing i am nothing i am nothing so often the only reason you know you’re still alive is from the heaving of your chest

the art of being empty

cause it is the only way i know how to tell you.

i flinch when you touch me i fear it is him

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

do not want to have you to fill the empty parts of me i want to be full on my own i want to be so complete i could light a whole city and then i want to have you cause the two of us combined could set it

how do you turn a forest fire like me so soft i turn into running water

need someone who knows struggle as well as i do someone willing to hold my feet in their lap on days it is too difficult to stand the type of person who gives exactly what i need before i even know i need it the type of lover who hears me even when i do not speak is the type of understanding i demand - the type of lover i need

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

he only whispers i love you as he slips his hands down the waistband of your pants this is where you must understand the difference between want and need you may want that boy but you certainly don’t need him

more than anything i want to save you from myself

it must hurt to know i am your most beautiful regret

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

you must have known you were wrong when your fingers were dipped inside me searching for honey that would not come for you

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 ...

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

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

mouth tears my eyes can’t carry

neither of us is happy but neither of us wants to leave so we keep breaking one another and calling it love

people go but how they left always stays

the night after you left i woke up so broken the only place to put the pieces were the bags under my eyes

he isn’t coming back whispered my head he has to sobbed my heart - wilting

you cannot leave and have me too i cannot exist in two places at once - when you ask if we can still be friends

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

you will stand there naked with half of them still hidden somewhere inside you and sob. asking them why they did it. why they forced you to love them when they had no intention of loving you back and they’ll say something along the lines of i just had to try. i had to give it a chance. it was you after all. but that isn’t romantic. it isn’t sweet. the idea that they were so engulfed by your existence they had to risk breaking it for the sake of knowing they weren’t the one missing out. your existence meant that little next to their curiosity of you. that is the thing about selfish people. they gamble entire beings. entire souls to please their own. one second they are holding you like the world in their lap and the next they

have belittled you to a mere picture. a moment. something of the past. one second. they swallow you up and whisper they want to spend the rest of their life with you. but the moment they sense fear. they are already halfway out the door. without having the nerve to let you go with grace. as if the human heart means that little to them. and after all this. after all of the taking. the nerve. isn’t it sad and funny how people have more guts these days to undress you with their fingers than they do to pick up the phone and call. apologize. for the loss. and this is how you lose her. - selfish

the way they leave tells you everything

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

you must enter a relationship with yourself before anyone else

accept that you deserve more than painful love life is moving the healthiest thing for yo...

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 - to the reader

sometimes the apology never comes when

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