Home Body

by Rupi Kaur

remained with me long after we landed in a country that did not want us

where the depression came from

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

depression is silent you never hear it coming and suddenly it’s the loudest voice in your head

depression froze me in place

almost foreign in this body.

my chest collapses into my stomach knowing that i have to get up in the morning and pretend i’m not fading away all over again.

This one right here....

i’m just afraid i won’t measure up to the idea people have of me in their heads

you lose everything when you don’t love yourself

my body remembers

my body wears what it’s been through

i’m either romanticizing the past or i’m busy worrying about the future

i am not broken because of the depression i am not a lesser version of myself because of the anxiety i am a whole complete and complicated person

you are the embrace of my life my confessional my altar

you just lost perspective

i am not a victim of my life what i went through pulled a warrior out of me and it is my greatest honor to be her

thinking if you were lucky enough to taste me you’d get your hands on something better everything dulled in comparison

i’m scared i will be cheated on with a woman more brilliant more striking more of me in every way terrified this will confirm what i know already that i am not enough for someone to stay

your partner is supposed to enrich your life not drain it staying when it hurts is not love

your partner can’t be your everything

in a world that doesn’t consider my body to be mine self-pleasure is an act of self-preservation when i’m feeling disconnected i connect with my center touch by touch i drop back into myself at the orgasm

there are years in me that have not slept

i fear that my best years are behind me and nothing beyond this point will add up

capitalism got inside my head and made me think i am of worth as long as i am working

when you’re an immigrant you keep your head down and stay working

you work until your bones become dust you are the only one you can count on

i can’t afford it can this wait until i get back home to canada

no one should have to work to the bone like that

the earth said take care of what takes care of you

as if nature is not god

as if god is not the earth itself

we compare calendars just to plan coffee dates that one of us eventually cancels cause adulthood is being too exhausted to leave our apartments most days

you might have done the external work but your mind is starving for internal attention

this finding ourselves bullshit is never going to end

being productive is knowing when to rest

not everything you do has to be self-improving you are not a machine you are a person without rest your work can never be full without play your mind can never be nourished

i spent a decade climbing out of it. my hands blistered. my feet swelled. my mind said i can’t take it anymore. i told my mind you better get yourself together. we came here for joy. and we are going to feel all of it.

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

true self-love is embracing the difficult parts that live in all of us

now here you are using the word pussy like an insult when you’re not even strong enough to be one

more women in the arena means more room for all of us to rise

it shouldn’t affect anyone what we do with our bodies least of all those who haven’t walked a day in our shoes

i want to leave this place knowing i did something with my body other than trying to make it look perfect

my soul becoming more potent with age

nothing tastes better than being on your own side