Home Body

by Rupi Kaur

my mind keeps running off to dark corners and coming back with reasons for why i am not enough

i have never known anything more quietly loud than anxiety

how can i be so cruel to myself when i’m doing the best i can - be gentle

what we lived through is living in us

nothing can replace how the women in my life make me feel

it’s impossible for one person to fill you up in all the ways you need to be filled your partner can’t be your everything

you look tired he says i turn to him and say yeah i’m exhausted i’ve been fighting misogyny for decades how else do you expect me to look

no one on this planet is in more denial than the white man who regardless of all the evidence in front of him still thinks racism and sexism and all the world’s pain don’t exist

oh but the pussy is brave lest we forget how much pain the pussy can take how much pleasure it delivers unto itself and others remember how it spit you out without a flinch now here you are using the word pussy like an insult when you’re not even strong enough to be one

i am not interested in a feminism that excludes trans women