Milk and Honey

by Rupi Kaur

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

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

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

i am learning how to love him by loving myself

he says i am sorry i am not an easy person to want i look at him surprised who said i wanted easy i don’t crave easy i crave goddamn difficult

i 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 on fire

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

i am a museum full of art but you had your eyes shut

the thing worth holding on to would not have let go

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 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 will not have you build me into your life when what i want is to build a life with you

we began with honesty let us end in it too

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

giving you credit for my warmth simply because you had felt it. thinking it was you who gave me strength. wit. beauty. simply because you recognized it. as if i was already not these things before i met you. as if i did not remain all these once you left.

that is the thing about selfish people. they gamble entire beings. entire souls to please their own.

the way they leave tells you everything

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

you must enter a relationship with yourself before anyone else

loneliness is a sign you are in desperate need of yourself

you are in the habit of co-depending on people to make up for what you think you lack who tricked you into believing another person was meant to complete you when the most they can do is complement

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

sometimes the apology never comes when it is wanted and when it comes it is neither wanted nor needed

the next time he points out the hair on your legs is growing back remind that boy your body is not his home he is a guest warn him to never outstep his welcome again

you deserve to be completely found in your surroundings not lost within them

i love that about us how capable we are of feeling how unafraid we are of breaking

our backs tell stories no books have the spine to carry

accept yourself as you were designed

the recreational use of this body is seen as beautiful while its nature is seen as ugly

you were a dragon long before he came around and said you could fly you will remain a dragon long after he’s left

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

how you love yourself is how you teach others to love you

you are your own soul mate

you have to stop searching for why at some point you have to leave it alone

if you are not enough for yourself you will never be enough for someone else

what terrifies me most is how we foam at the mouth with envy when others succeed but sigh in relief when they are failing our struggle to celebrate each other is what’s proven most difficult in being human